Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is pushing for legislation to lift regulations on how many hours teenagers are allowed to work, saying that lifting the restrictions will help ease the state’s labor shortages.
The Republican governor’s office, joining other states in trying to revamp or change child-labor laws, has pitched a bill for the current legislative session to cut the time restrictions, reported The Wall Street Journal on Thursday.
“What’s wrong with expecting our young people to be working part-time?” DeSantis said during an immigration roundtable event last month. “Why do we say we need to import foreigners, even import them illegally, when, you know, teenagers used to work at these resorts?”
The plans are being backed and are heading through the legislature with the support of small business groups, while unions and advocates for the poor oppose the measure.
A vote is expected before the full House Friday. In the Senate, the bill’s counterpart passed in just one committee, leaving the future of the legislation uncertain.
If passed, it will let 16- and 17-year-olds work for more than eight hours on school nights and end a 30-hour weekly work limit for teens while school is in session.
The current Florida legislative session ends on May 2.
The Foundation for Government Accountability, based in Florida, is one of several advocacy groups that lobbied for the legislation, saying the issue is one of parental rights.
“I really wanted to give the power back to the parents,” said Republican state Rep. Monique Miller, a sponsor of the Florida House bill.
Small business groups, chambers of commerce, and restaurant and lodging associations say the changes will help them meet their labor needs while giving teens life experience.
Critics, however, say that pulling back job restrictions could detract from teen workers’ schooling and make them vulnerable to exploitation.
They also say that the measures are geared more for employers than for teens.
“This is, at its root, an attempt to find a lower-cost source of labor,” David Weil, a professor at Brandeis University and a former Labor Department official in the Obama administration, commented. “It’s as simple as that, even if it’s dressed up as something more virtuous.”
A 2023 Florida law that cracked down on illegal immigration made it harder for small businesses to find workers. The state’s labor market remains tight, with a 3.6% unemployment rate in February, compared to 4.1% nationally. The job openings rate in the state was 4.8% of employment, with national ratings at 4.6%.
DeSantis last year signed a law loosening restrictions on construction work for teens ages 16 and 17, along with a separate bill that also extended working hours for teens, but that bill didn’t go far enough, his deputy director of legislative affairs said in an email released by the Florida Senate.
The current bill calls to eliminate all restrictions on hours 16- and 17-year-olds can work, including permitting overnight shifts during school weeks that are not allowed under the current law.
Federal child-labor standards prohibit people under 18 from holding jobs in dangerous occupations such as mining or meatpacking and allow workers under 16 to work only for limited hours and not to take overnight shifts. Children 13 and younger are only approved for a handful of jobs.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, lawmakers, mostly Republicans, have sponsored bills to loosen teen workers’ restrictions.
Other states are also calling to put teenagers to work. In Alabama, work permits have been eliminated, while in Ohio, teenagers are now permitted to serve alcohol.
In Iowa, teens ages 16 and 17 can now perform jobs they were banned from in the past, including in work programs for brick manufacturing and demolition operations.
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