Teenaged Florida students would no longer be restricted by laws limiting working hours for teenagers under a bill moving in the Florida Senate.
Republican Sen. Jay Collins faced opposition from members of both parties and from children’s advocates during the Commerce and Tourism committee Tuesday morning, when he presented his bill, SB 918.
“This is a parental-rights thing. Parents know their kids best. I can promise you that, even though I was challenged, my mom would have smacked me with a flip flop if my academic grades had suffered, that’s very much the same thing in most families. For those that don’t, often this is the respite they need to step forward and grow and become the best version of themselves,” Collins said.
The bill would allow 16- and 17-year-olds and certain 14- and 15-year-olds to work overnight on school days and work longer than eight hours the day before school days.
Public-comment speakers feared that the bill would take power away from parents and give it to employers. Florida law provides an opportunity to opt out of working restrictions.
Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith noted a line from Gov. Ron DeSantis last week during a roundtable at New College of Florida on immigration. “Why do we say that we need to import foreigners, even import them illegally, when, you know, teenagers used to work at these resorts, college students should be able to do this stuff,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis was “saying the quiet part out loud, the quiet part being that we’re somehow going to solve the current labor shortage that we have in Florida, that was worsened with anti-immigrant rhetoric, with child labor,” Smith said.
Collins later told reporters that he believes DeSantis was talking about “soft skills” benefits of young people working.
Collins reiterated that workers remain protected under the Fair Labor Standards Act, a federal law spelling out labor protections for minors, including prohibiting hazardous working conditions.
‘Bad message’
The measure advanced 5-4, with three Democrats joined by Republican Sen. Joe Gruters in opposition.
“I think this sends a bad message,” Gruters said. “I think we need to let kids be kids, I think the guardrails that we’re removing, even though it may be a part of federal law, not in favor of it.”
According to Florida Policy Institute, more than 110,000 Florida workers would be affected by the bill.
An uncommonly long list of public commenters advocated against the bill.
Jackson Oberlink from Florida For All suggested labor shortages can be addressed by other means.
“This is not about opportunity, it’s about exploitation. Make no mistake, the children who will suffer the most under this law will be low-income, working-class, and migrant youth, the same communities that corporations already exploit. Let’s be honest about the real labor crisis in Florida — it’s not a worker shortage, it’s a wage shortage,” Oberlink said.
Republican Sens. Nick DiCeglie and Tom Wright said that, although they voted up, they want to continue the conversation about how the legislation could be improved before it goes in front of the entire Senate.
“This is not about corporations, this is not about demonizing small businesses or Publix or organizations out there,” Collins said. Instead, he continued, it’s about students learning “soft skills,” “self-determination,” managing money, and growing.
Collins said he would continue to work on the bill.
The bill has two more committee stops, Regulated Industries and Rules, before it would head to the Senate floor.
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