‘I Expected to Work in an Office:’ Engineers Recruited by Carmakers End Up on the Assembly Line
Mexican nationals recruited to work white-collar jobs at Hyundai and Kia plants in Georgia instead ended up on the factory floor, lawsuit alleges.
The US Southeast and Georgia are experiencing a surge in investment in electric vehicle manufacturing.
Photographer: Elijah Nouvelage/BloombergIsidro Arellano thought he’d found a good thing when recruiters showed up at Mexico’s Universidad Tecnológica de Torreón looking for engineers interested in career-enhancing jobs in the auto industry in the US South.
What the 26-year-old said he got instead was a job lugging steering columns and installing bumpers, logging 60-hour-plus weeks at a Kia assembly line in West Point, Georgia.
“I expected to work in an office, like I was used to in Mexico,” Arellano said from Mexico, where he returned last year after being fired, he said, for complaining about what he describes as a bait-and-switch. “I expected to attend meetings with executives, in an environment that was friendly. I expected what I was promised, what I signed up for.”