Latest news with #LaborPoolAct
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Bill that would repeal Florida Labor Pool Act advances to full House
A construction zone in Tallahassee featuring a crane and soon-to-be-apartments across the street from the FSU campus on Dec. 31, 2024. (Photo by Jay Waagmeester/Florida Phoenix) A bill that would repeal state law governing the day labor industry in Florida was approved in a House committee on Tuesday and now will move to the full chamber for consideration. The proposal (HB 6033), sponsored by North Florida Republican Rep. Shane Abbott, is necessary, he says, because Florida's Labor Pool Act, passed in 1995, is duplicative of federal labor law. A Senate staff analysis says the state law 'provides for the health, safety and well-being of day laborers throughout the state and outlines uniform standards of conduct and practice for labor pools.' Abbott has said that Florida day labor employees (including those working in construction, hospitality, janitorial, and agriculture) are protected because Florida has its own version of OSHA, the federal Occupational Safety Health Administration. There is one problem with that, Rich Templin of the Florida AFL-CIO told the House Commerce Committee. 'There is no state OSHA,' he said, referencing to the situation in 2021 when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called upon the Legislature to set up a state-run agency to supersede the federal OSHA because of COVID-19 restrictions imposed by the Joe Biden administration. The Legislature passed such a bill, and DeSantis signed it in November 2021, but as WTSP reported at the time, the whole process of creating a plan 'could take anywhere from two to five years,' and the law does not appear to have ever been implemented. 'A vote for this bill is literally taking away rights and protections of over a million workers in the state of Florida, including people in your district,' Templin said Tuesday. 'When these labor pools realize that they're not governed by state law anymore, bad things are gong to happen. And those workers are going to wonder how did this happen, and they're going to look to you.' One of the groups registered to lobby in support of the legislation is Pacesetter Personnel Services,which was the subject of a federal class action alleging labor violations in Florida, including failing to provide water and bathrooms on the job, overcharging for transportation, and failure to pay for time spent waiting for assignments. A federal judge in the fall of 2023 dismissed the plaintiffs' complaints but said they could refile later.. 'They've been sued for denying workers access to water, bathrooms, and fair pay, and now they want use to legalize that abuse,' said Jackson Oberlink of the progressive group Florida For All. 'If you vote yes on this bill, you are siding with them, and I don't think that's who you want to be.' 'These workers already face low wages, unsafe conditions, and a high risk of wage theft,' added Jonathan Webber of the Southern Poverty Law Center. 'The Labor Pool Act fills key gaps where federal law is silent or inefficient.' Miami-Dade County Democratic Rep. Kevin Chambliss said that he has encouraged young men he knows who need work to participate in day labor pools. 'If you're there at 5:00 in the morning, if you're there all week, I promise you at some point you're going to be able to go out for work and at some point hopefully you'll be able to be picked up by a company.' Whether the bill will pass into law this year is in question, however, after the Senate bill (SB 1672) was temporarily postponed in the Senate Fiscal Policy Committee on Tuesday. There are no longer any committee meetings scheduled before the 60-day session is slated to end on May 2. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
19-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Editorial: For Florida's working poor, a very rare victory in Tallahassee
The moral of this editorial is simple: Never stop fighting for what you believe in, especially in Tallahassee. Despite the odds, keep speaking up. A rare and surprising thing happened at the state Capitol on Thursday, as a Senate committee suddenly shelved a bill that could do serious harm to the people near the bottom of the economic ladder in Florida. They are day laborers who struggle to find work through labor pools and temporary employment agencies, showing up as early as 3 a.m. to seek low-wage work such as removing construction debris in hopes of earning $70 or $80 a day. Florida workers have been abused by the Legislature for too long. It has continued this session, in which lawmakers want to allow employers to avoid paying the $13-an-hour minimum wage, make it easier to exploit young teens in the workplace and make it harder for jobless people to seek relief when Florida already has the nation's stingiest unemployment benefits. It appears as if the prolonged political assault on the working poor in this state has finally gone too far — even for otherwise anti-worker Republicans. At issue in that Thursday committee hearing was Senate Bill 1672, which would repeal Florida's Labor Pool Act, a law with bare-bones legal safeguards for those who rely on day labor to make ends meet. A Senate staff report said the 1995 law 'provides for the health, safety and well-being of day laborers throughout the state and outlines uniform standards of conduct and practice for labor pools.' For example, the law requires employers to meet minimum work standards such as safety helmets, to provide drinking water and restrooms at job sites, and seating for workers who may wait for hours to be hired. The law also requires employers to give day laborers itemized pay stubs and bars employers from charging exorbitant fees to transport workers. Sen. Keith Truenow, a first-term Republican from suburban Orlando, filed the repeal bill. For the second time this session, he gave a disingenuously vague explanation of it to the Senate Fiscal Policy Committee on Thursday. 'The bill seeks to remove provisions of Florida law that are duplicative,' Truenow told senators in a flat monotone. Somebody was paying attention, and attentive senators are all too familiar with such political shenanigans. But only when opponents spoke up did the true effects of the bill begin to emerge. Republican Sen. Blaise Ingoglia of Spring Hill, who has a decidedly pro-business voting record and a history of opposing labor unions, asked that SB 1672 be postponed — a sign of big trouble with only two weeks left in the regular session. 'I think all of us have some questions,' Ingoglia said. The bill was set aside with no vote, or temporarily postponed in the jargon of the Legislature. The Fiscal Policy Committee may not meet again this session, which would make that temporary postponement permanent — unless the bill is filed again next year. The House version, HB 6033, has passed two House committees. A leading opponent of the bill, lawyer Maya Ragsdale of Hallandale Beach, is a co-director of Beyond the Bars, a worker center in Miami that helps released inmates find work. 'If repealed, most protections in the Labor Pool Act would be lost entirely,' Ragsdale testified. She told senators they are getting 'incomplete and inaccurate information' about the impact of its repeal, and that it is wrong that similar federal protections also exist. Ragsdale and other critics say the force behind the law's repeal is a Houston-based company, Pacesetter Personnel Services, which has a big presence in South Florida. The firm retained lawyer-lobbyist Ron Book and two associates of his Hollywood firm. Campaign finance records show that Book's firm gave $5,000 to Truenow's political committee, Growing Florida's Leadership, and the lobbyist contributed $3,000 more to Truenow's campaign last year. Besides Beyond the Bars, the Florida AFL-CIO is fighting the bill. The union's chief lobbyist, Rich Templin, railed against the Legislature's anti-worker agenda in a news conference Wednesday with Sen. Tina Polsky, a Democrat from Boca Raton, and Beyond the Bars members. The 2025 session is far from over and the repeal could be fished out of the discard pile and passed through a waiver of the rules. But for once, the collective voices of Florida's working poor were heeded. They spoke up — and it mattered. The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board includes Executive Editor Roger Simmons, Opinion Editor Krys Fluker and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant, Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney and editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman. Send letters to insight@
