TALLAHASSEE – The 14-year-old young teenager may be allowed to work overnight shifts immediately as part of an effort to roll back key aspects of the state’s child labour laws as part of a Republican-led Congress effort.
The proposal, scheduled to be heard in a Florida Senate Committee Tuesday morning, says Gov. Ron DeSantis could be part of a solution to illegally replace the “cheap” labor from the country’s immigrants.
“Why do we need to import foreigners, why do we say we need to import them illegally? When you know, teenagers worked at these resorts, so college students should be able to do something like this,” DeSantis said last week during a panel discussion with President Donald Trump’s border emperor Tom Homan.
The governor said he has taken several steps to crack down on hiring workers who live illegally in the country, including enacting state laws requiring large companies to screen workers via e-verify, a federal database that confirms employee citizenship status.
“Yes, we had people who left because of those rules, but you could have hired others, and what’s wrong with expecting our young people to work part-time now?
State lawmakers are colouring Tallahassee’s arguments. State lawmakers are considering removing all restrictions on how late and how much work ages 16, 17 and 17 are, and ending guarantees for food breaks for teenage workers.
The proposal also removes employment time limits for young teens, ages 14 and 15, if they attend homeschooling or virtual school.
A similar idea came to parliament last year, but was eventually debilitated. This year’s bill is sponsored by Sen. Jay Collins of R-Tampa. He did not reply to multiple comments on the bill and why he thought it was necessary.
As it is currently in Florida, 16 and 17-year-old teenagers are unable to work before 6:30am or after 11pm and cannot work during school hours unless they are in a career education program. They are also limited to work up to 30 hours a week when school is in attendance, unless the parent or school superintendent waives that limit.
Homeschooling or virtually school teenagers of age are exempt from these time restrictions, which are changes made by Congress last year.
If the state’s child labour laws change, the risk is that younger workers will have less protection and struggle to say no to their employers, said Nina Mast, an analyst at the Institute for Economic Policy.
“The teens that are most harmful in this bill are low-income youth and people without documented positions who are forced to work by their circumstances,” Mast said.
Businesses across the United States employ migrant children in dangerous jobs, regardless of existing labor laws, reports show. In January, Meatpackers agreed to pay a total of $8 million after Perdue Farms and JBS discovered that the Department of Labor relied on the labor of immigrant children at slaughterhouses.
Mast said he believes that bills like Florida is considering are “essentially trying to legalize violations that employers have already committed.” She noted that work time violations, such as foodservice, are the most common.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, cited by the Florida Institute of Policy Research, the number of child labor violations in Florida tripled three years from 95 in 2019.
In 2023, violations fell to 209, but were still higher than last year.
Florida’s Child Labour Act provides additional protection beyond what was imposed by the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938. However, Collins’ bill brings Florida closer to baseline federal standards.
Under this year’s proposal, children aged 14 and 15 can work long hours if they graduate from high school or have GED, if they are homeschooled or effectively exempted from school.
Teens are prohibited from working in many dangerous occupations, such as meat packing and roofing.
Alexis Tsukara, a labor expert at the left-leaning Florida Institute of Policy Research, said the bill’s proposal is “myopic towards thinking in the long term.”
Tsoukalas said studies have shown that youth work more than 20 hours a week at a higher risk of dropping out of high school or slowing down their performance in school.
“In the short term, they may make some money, but in the long term they are not educated, which hurts more people in the labour market,” Tsoukalas said.
Tsoukalas said working hours increases the risk of accidents and injuries even if teenagers are not working in dangerous jobs.
While supporting students working part-time jobs, Sen. Shevrin Jones of D-West Park said he believes the proposed bill this year “can exploit students and affect their well-being in school.”
Beyond that, Jones worries Republicans are turning to younger workers to address potential shortages in the workforce, as they promise Trump to expel millions of immigrants in the country illegally.
“Let’s not look to our students to resolve the issues that President Donald Trump and the Republicans have caused,” Jones said. “Lowing the working age is not the key to filling the gap in our workforce. The key is to fixing a broken immigration system, which does not include Florida or the US using inhumane tactics for political gain.”
Collins’ bill closely reflects a proposal that failed to pass Congress last year after facing public backlash from critics who were worried that working long hours during the school year would affect their health and education. Last year’s bill was R-ST. Pete Beach.
Chaney’s bill was introduced last year after the government’s Accountability Foundation passed a draft in her office. The group is seeking a rollback of child labour laws from other states.
Records show that Cheney’s office asked the foundation for the bill. The group responded by saying that the change would help teens learn skills and the value of dollars.
