There’s no other way to say it – the new CEO of Hyundai’s Montgomery auto manufacturing plant took on the job at an interesting time.

No sooner did Chris Susock take a seat behind the desk at Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama (HMMA) when the company saw two immediate challenges – one of the most aggressive union drives in Alabama history, and a potential landmark lawsuit by the U.S. Department of Labor over child workers in the automaker’s supply chain.

Back in February, the United Auto Workers announced that more than 30 percent of the employees at Hyundai’s Montgomery auto plant had signed union cards.

While most of the state’s attention has focused on a union vote last month at Tuscaloosa County’s Mercedes-Benz plant, the effort at Hyundai is still the farthest the union has gotten there.

Then in May, the Labor Department filed suit against Hyundai, an Alabama automotive supply plant and a temporary agency to “surrender profits” related to child labor in the state.

A complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Alabama’s Middle District says a 13-year-old worked for up to 60 hours a week on an assembly line in Luverne operating machines that formed sheet metal into auto body parts.

The lawsuit came after more than two years of headlines related to the issue, which has already resulted in several investigations and fines.

Susock, who has been with Hyundai in Alabama since before the plant began operating, said both issues deal with the values that Hyundai and its workers have.

In terms of the union effort, Susock said he is not a stranger to the UAW. A former employee of Ford, he worked for 15 years within the structure of a UAW contractual agreement. Some members of his family were union members.

Much of the union’s momentum over the last year has been attributed to new leadership, largely under the direction of union president Shawn Fain. But the union itself, Susock said, has not changed.

“The UAW is the UAW,” he said. “The new leadership, or the current administration of their leadership, I’ll be honest, I don’t see as being much different than it has been in the past. They’re established. They have their own set of traditional values. I don’t think it’s changed much. Maybe the inspiration has changed. At the end of the day, I don’t think it changes much in how they operate.”

While he feels the UAW were successful in achieving some of the union’s aims in its historic Big Three contracts of last year, that success won’t translate to the South, he said.

See also: Hyundai’s new Alabama CEO Chris Susock: ‘Building cars is in my blood’

“I’ve been here from the very beginning,” he said. “We were able to sustain a well-structured environment where it wasn’t necessary for any type of third-party representation for workers. I think we’ve been very successful in creating a working environment for our team members.

“When (union representatives) come and make the promises – we can do this or that for you – it’s a challenge to get them to say yes,” he said. “Because it’s about what you can provide us that we can’t get from the management team or HMMA as a whole, and I don’t think they have that traction.”

Susock said the issues at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant, where the UAW won its first plant election in the deep South, or even at Mercedes-Benz, may be more specific to those plants. “I can’t speak directly about Mercedes-Benz, but they’re probably in the same boat we are,” he said.

When it comes to the child labor issue, Susock referred to Hyundai’s corporate statement in late May.

At the time, the company said the Labor Department “is seeking to apply an unprecedented legal theory that would unfairly hold Hyundai accountable for the actions of its suppliers and set a concerning precedent for other automotive companies and manufacturers. We are reviewing the new lawsuit and intend to vigorously defend the company.”

Susock said Hyundai took immediate action when Reuters reported the use of child labor at an Alabama supplier two years ago. He said the company reviewed all of its suppliers and required them to conduct independent audits of their operations. It also created a supplier training program, in collaboration with the Department of Labor.

“I think it’s important that people know this did not happen at HMMA but with one of the suppliers,” he said. “I can’t speak for them directly, but what I can say is that I’m not just a CEO of Hyundai Motor Manufacturing in Alabama, but I’m also a parent. The use of child labor has absolutely no part in manufacturing, or the standards and values we hold to at Hyundai. We do not employ underage children in HMMA’s facility, and that will never happen.”

Susock said the company will defend itself in court, but will continue to cooperate with efforts to ensure a similar situation never happens again.

“We have our values and our standards, and we know right from wrong,” he said. “We did everything we could, once we were made aware of the situation, to make sure we supported the Department of Labor to drive our suppliers to make sure they were aware of the (company’s) expectations.”