Latest news with #SenateBill918
Newsweek
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Newsweek
Florida's Plan to Replace Migrant Workers With Children Falls Apart
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. A bill that would have loosened child labor laws in Florida has died in the state Senate. The proposal came as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, touted using teenagers as a replacement for the labor of migrants who are in the country illegally. Newsweek has contacted DeSantis' office for comment via email. Governor Ron DeSantis speaking during a news conference at the ICE-Enforcement and Removal Operation office in Miramar, Florida, on May 1. Governor Ron DeSantis speaking during a news conference at the ICE-Enforcement and Removal Operation office in Miramar, Florida, on May It Matters President Donald Trump has pledged to deport millions of people in the United States with no legal status, while critics say deportations on such a scale could lead to labor shortages. The bill would have permitted 16- and 17-year-olds to work overnight on school days and work longer than an eight-hour day before a school day. Some 14- and 15-year-olds would also have been allowed to work those hours. Proponents said the bill aligned with federal child labor law and would help combat labor shortages, but critics warned that it posed serious risks of exploitation. What to Know If approved, Senate Bill 918 would have removed restrictions on the number of hours that 16- and 17-year-olds can work per week during the school year. It would also have scrapped required 30-minute meal breaks and allowed children as young as 14 who are homeschooled or enrolled in virtual school to work overnight shifts. Under Florida law, 16- and 17-year-olds are limited to up to 30 hours a week of work when school is in session unless a parent or school superintend waives that restriction. They also cannot work before 6:30 a.m. or after 11 p.m. on a school day. The language in the bill came from staff within DeSantis' office, Orlando Weekly reported, citing records it obtained. Supporters of the measure included Moms for Liberty and the National Federation of Independent Business. However, the legislation faced opposition from the Florida AFL-CIO, the state's largest federation of labor unions. Its opponents also included the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP and student activist groups. The bill was approved by the Florida House in April, largely along party lines. However, the Senate version of the bill failed to advance before Florida's legislative session concluded on Friday. What People Are Saying Republican state Senator Jay Collins, the bill's sponsor, said the measure was about parental rights: "We should let them say what's best for their kids at 16- to 17-year-olds, that's what we're saying by this." Republican state Senator Joe Gruters said: "I think we need to let kids be kids." Governor Ron DeSantis said during a panel discussion in March: "Why do we say 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? … What's wrong with expecting our young people to be working part-time now? I mean, that's how it used to be when I was growing up." What Happens Next The bill to loosen child labor laws in Florida is effectively dead, but it remains to be seen whether lawmakers will pursue it in a future session.
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Scott Maxwell: With migrants fleeing, Florida seeks child labor
The Newsweek headline looked like satire: 'Florida May Replace Immigrant Workers With Child Labor.' Savvy Floridians know, though, that you can't fictionalize stories more absurd than this state's reality. And Florida lawmakers are, in fact, trying to roll back the state's child-labor laws. Basically, if employers in this state can't exploit immigrants, the governor and Legislature want them to be able to legally exploit your children. The latest proposal would allow teens to work longer hours, without breaks and even overnight shifts on school nights. Take that, Myanmar. Up next, maybe we can emulate Burkina Faso where more than half the kids are in the labor force, some as young as 7. Now there's a country with values. What you're witnessing is a real-life version of the dog that chased cars without thinking about what he'd do if he actually caught one. In this case, Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state's GOP legislators have fumed for years about undocumented workers without having the slightest clue about how they'd respond if those workers actually walked off Florida job sites. So now they're panicking and want your kids to fill the bill. DeSantis favors replacing 'dirt cheap' labor from illegal migrants with teens 14 and older Normally, in a free-market economy, if an employer can't find workers, it would just raise wages until people start applying. That's how supply and demand works. But Florida's GOP politicians don't want to ask their campaign donors to raise wages. They'd rather flood the market with another class of exploitable workers — teenagers. Maybe you used to dream of your teen becoming an engineer or architect. Well, forget that Ivy League, ivory-tower fiddle-faddle. Florida's economy needs them harvesting tomatoes and cleaning motel rooms. In some ways, it makes sense to put our kids to work. We're sure not educating them. Florida's SAT scores have dropped to 47th in America. And our state's eighth-graders just posted the lowest math and reading scores in 20 years. So, if we're not preparing them for higher education or high-paying jobs, we might as well get them primed for the low-wage tourism and agriculture jobs that make this state hum. Florida test scores drop again, and all we get are excuses | Commentary Senate Bill 918, would eliminate restrictions on how many hours 16- and 17-year-olds can work. It would end guaranteed meal breaks and also lift restrictions for kids as young as 14 who are home schooled or enrolled in virtual school. (So if you want your rugrat pulling down a paycheck, just yank 'em out of traditional school.) The Florida Policy Institute summarized the bill by saying it would allow Florida to work teens 'for unlimited hours, any time day or night, seven days per week and without breaks.' Welcome to childhood in Florida. Not all Republicans think this is a boffo idea. Sen. Joe Gruters, a former chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, joined Democrats in opposing the bill, saying: 'I think we need to let kids be kids.' Gruters chose his words carefully: 'Let kids be kids' is a line DeSantis uses a lot, usually when he's pushing censorship laws. Apparently, in DeSantis' worldview, teens aren't mature enough to see certain drag performers, even alongside their parents — but are mature enough to work right through the night until school starts at 7 am. That's just kids being kids. As I've said before, I'm a fan of teens having jobs. I had a paper route in middle school and landed my first real job at a drugstore when I was 14 — old enough to legally sell condoms and tampons, but still immature enough to giggle about it. (Basically, if you ever entered a Revco in the 1980s, nervous about making a purchase, I was your worst nightmare.) But here's the thing: I believe teens should get jobs when they and their parents want them to get jobs — not because we need to plug labor holes in our low-wage economy. Keep in mind: DeSantis didn't promote his roll-back-child-labor-laws ideas at a panel discussion on building teen character. He did it at panel discussion on immigration. After noting that undocumented workers provided 'dirt cheap labor,' DeSantis asked: 'Why do we say why we need to import foreigners, even import them illegally, when you know teenagers used to work at these resorts?' This is just about swapping one exploitable labor class for another … in a state that already turns a blind eye to companies that break labor laws. Remember Florida's 'mandatory' E-Verify law? It explicitly said that the state couldn't even fine companies caught breaking the law until they're caught three times. And that law-breaking employers must be given 30 days to stop breaking the law before they're punished. What other laws work like that? This is a state that gives companies a pass on labor-law violations and now wants to give them a younger workforce. What a dangerous combo. Even moreso when you consider GOP lawmakers also want to let businesses subvert minimum wage laws for some workers 'younger than 18 years of age.' Amnesty-for-employers still part of Florida's immigration 'crackdown' | Commentary Kids in Florida who say they have financial 'hardships' can surrender even more workplace protections. Basically, the poorer you are, the more you can be exploited. So it ain't gonna be the private, prep-school kids working farm fields and cleaning motel rooms at 3 in the morning. DeSantis seemed particularly interested in using kids to fill the theme parks' job needs. But the proposed rollbacks would also allow teens to work longer hours waxing floors, painting houses, stocking shelves, doing landscaping and working in fast food. Kids would still be banned from doing particularly dangerous jobs like mining or tarring roofs higher than six feet. So teens could be asked to work overnight shifts right up until the start of a school day. That's just 'kids being kids.' But we'd draw the line at boiler rooms and phosphate mines. A state has to have standards, after all. smaxwell@
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Florida lawmakers debate lifting some child labor laws
In late March 2025, claims (archived) circulated online that the state of Florida was debating lifting some child labor laws to fill jobs formerly held by immigrants. (X user @crampell) The claims originally dated (archived) from around Feb. 19, when Republican state Sen. Jay Collins submitted Senate Bill 918: Employment of Minors. Claims about the bill recirculated on X (archived), Facebook (archived), Threads (archived), Reddit (archived) and Bluesky (archived) around March 25, when the bill advanced from the Florida Senate Committee on Commerce and Tourism. However, while it is true that the bill proposed removing certain protections in Florida's child labor law, neither the bill itself nor Sen. Collins referenced immigrants as the express purpose for doing so. We reached out to Collins for his comments on whether the bill seeks to place teenagers in roles previously held by immigrants and await his reply. Rather, it was Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis who brought migrants into the discussion around child labor laws in the state. During a roundtable discussion hosted by the New College of Florida on March 20, DeSantis said: They said when we did E-Verify — we've got big resorts, we've got all this — they said oh, you know, "You're not going to be able to hire people" or whatever. And, one, that hasn't been the case in Florida. Yes, we had people that left because of those rules but you've also been able to hire other people. And what's wrong with expecting, like, our young people to be working part time now? I mean, that's how it used to be when I was growing up. Why do we say 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 did not reference Senate Bill 918 during the discussion. Senate Bill 918 sought to amend Florida Statute 450.081 that governs work hours for 15- to 17-year-olds in the state. The bill sought to remove both specific regulations on child labor such as working hours but also an existing waiver system where the Department of Business and Professional Regulation could waive "the restrictions imposed by the Child Labor Law on the employment of a child" when "such waiver is in the best interest of a child." Should Senate Bill 918's amendments pass, 16- and 17-year-olds in Florida would be allowed to work before 6:30 a.m., after 11 p.m., more than eight hours per day when school is scheduled the next day and more than 30 hours per week. The bill also proposed to remove a requirement for breaks for 16- and 17-year-olds, who are currently entitled to a 30-minute meal break when working more than four hours continuously. At the time of this writing, Senate Bill 918 had advanced through the Florida Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee but still had other committee votes and a full Senate vote to pass before it could be signed into law. The bill itself did not mention immigrants or that its purpose would be to get children or teens to fill roles left by immigrants who left the U.S. after the Trump administration's crackdowns. However, major news outlets reported the bill's passage through the Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee alongside DeSantis' statements about expecting teenagers and college students to work. The alleged connection was also brought up by Democratic state Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith in the Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee discussion of the bill on March 25. Smith quoted DeSantis saying that teenagers and college students "should be able to do this stuff," referring to resort hospitality work, and said (at 1:09:04): So, I just read a quote to you from Gov. Ron DeSantis last week 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 was among four senators in the committee who voted against the bill. Collins, who submitted the bill, did not comment on this criticism while addressing the committee about the bill. "Florida State's Legislature 'Is Set to Debate a Bill That Would Loosen Child Labor Laws, Allowing Children as Young as 14 Years Old to Work Overnight Shifts.'" Bluesky, 25 Mar. 2025, Chapter 450 - 2024 Florida Statutes - The Florida Senate. Accessed 27 Mar. 2025. Chapter 450 Section 081 - 2012 Florida Statutes - The Florida Senate. Accessed 27 Mar. 2025. @citizensforethics. "Florida Is Considering Weakening Child Labor Laws to Help Fill Vacancies Created by Deportation of Undocumented Immigrants." Threads, 25 Mar. 2025, Committee on Commerce and Tourism. Accessed 27 Mar. 2025. @crampell. "Florida Debates Lifting Some Child Labor Laws to Fill Jobs Vacated by Undocumented Immigrants." X, 25 Mar. 2025, @CuringAmerica. "Breaking: Florida to Remove Child Labor Laws, in Order to Make up for Deported and Disappeared Minorities." X, 27 Mar. 2025, "Florida Legislation Would Relax Restrictions on the Working Hours of Teenagers." AP News, 26 Mar. 2025, Jones, Chelsea. DeSantis Backs Bill Loosening Child Labor Laws amid Immigration Crackdown - CBS Miami. 26 Mar. 2025, New College of Florida. "SOCRATIC STAGE: What's Next for U.S. Immigration Policy? [Ft. Governor DeSantis, T. Homan & C. Wolf]." YouTube, 20 Mar. 2025, Senate Bill 918 (2025) - The Florida Senate. Accessed 27 Mar. 2025. @SheCarriesOn. "Another Year, Another Bill That Aims to (Further) Weaken Child Labor Law in Florida. ." X, 20 Feb. 2025, The Florida Senate. "COMMITTEE VOTE RECORD." The Florida Senate, 25 Mar. 2025, u/mockingbird-. "Florida Debates Lifting Some Child Labor Laws to Fill Jobs Vacated by Undocumented Immigrants." Reddit, 25 Mar. 2025, United Humanists. "Florida Has Been Working for Years to Crack down on Employers That Hire Undocumented Immigrants. ." Facebook, 26 Mar. 2025, Valinsky, Jordan. "Florida Debates Lifting Some Child Labor Laws to Fill Jobs Vacated by Undocumented Immigrants | CNN Business." CNN, 25 Mar. 2025,
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Florida considers easing child labor laws after pushing out immigrants
As Florida officials enable Trump's mass deportation policies, lawmakers in the state are looking to children to take on some of the jobs that have typically been done by immigrants. Making its way through the state Senate is a new law, Senate Bill 918, that aims to loosen child labor laws and allow teenagers to work overnight shifts. As CNN reported: The state's legislature on Tuesday advanced a bill that would loosen child labor laws, allowing children as young as 14 years old to work overnight shifts. If the new law is passed, teenagers would be able to work overnight jobs on school days. They are currently prevented from working earlier than 6:30 am or later than 11 pm per state law. S.B. 918 also 'includes a number of changes including eliminating working time restrictions on teenagers aged 14 and 15 if they are home-schooled and ending guaranteed meal breaks for 16 and 17 year olds,' CNN reported. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis backs the law and has defended the idea of teenagers and college students working these jobs. DeSantis also explicitly linked the effort to the loss of immigrant labor. Speaking about the consequences of state verification laws at an event with border czar Tom Homan, the governor said, 'Yes, we had people that left because of those rules, but you've also been able to hire other people. And what's wrong with expecting our young people to be working part-time now?' In recent years, several states — many of them led by Republican governors — have rolled back child labor laws. This map from the Economic Policy Institute illustrates the spike in states rolling back these laws from 2021 to 2024. Back in 2023, for example, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a bill that made it easier for companies to hire children without getting consent from their parents. One month earlier, The New York Times published a bombshell report about the exploitation of immigrant children in factories operated by some of the most well-known companies in the U.S. That story should have spurred a nationwide push to strengthen child labor laws. Instead, states like Florida are going in the opposite direction, weakening such laws in part to deal with the fallout from the conservative movement's demonization of immigrants. They're essentially using child labor to paper over the gaps left by their draconian immigration policies. Project 2025, the far-right playbook for Trump's second term, specifically calls for rolling back 'hazard' regulations around child labor. The text claims, 'Some young adults show an interest in inherently dangerous jobs' and argues that 'with parental consent and proper training, certain young adults should be allowed to learn and work in more dangerous occupations.' Even as child labor laws are being rolled back, the Trump administration is working to gut social services, including funds that help provide school lunches to children and programs, like the supplemental nutrition assistance program, that help feed poor families. And if those cuts stay in place, they may leave American families with few alternatives to sending their children to work to keep food on the table. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Florida has a plan to fill jobs after immigration crackdowns: Hire minors
Good morning! Lawmakers in Florida are currently considering a bill that would significantly roll back child labor protections, in an effort to make it easier for employers to hire for roles previously filled by undocumented immigrants. Senate Bill 918 would allow companies to hire teenagers to work longer hours. It passed through a state senate committee earlier this week, and if voted into law, children as young as 14 would be permitted to work overnight shifts, even on school days. Certain work restrictions would be removed for minors over 16 years old, including prohibitions from working for more than eight hours per day, and more than 30 hours per week. And companies will no longer be required to provide minors over 16 with a designated 30-minute meal break. The proposal also removes employment restrictions for homeschooled children, those who attend virtual school, or those who are underage but have graduated high school or received an equivalent degree. 'A lot of agriculture and tourism jobs in Florida are held by individuals who have either special visas or are being employed unlawfully, and they're losing their jobs due to stricter enforcement of existing immigration law,' says Stefanie Camfield, an attorney as well as associate general counsel and director of HR services at Engage PEO, a Fort Lauderdale-based company that offers third-party human resource services. 'Employers are going to struggle to figure out how to fill those spots.' The bill has yet to be voted on by the Florida legislature, but if it passes, it will almost certainly be signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has already made his support clear. 'Why do we say 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 last week at a panel discussion first reported by the Tampa Bay Times. This isn't the only bill introduced this year in Florida focused on employing minors. A separate and even more controversial proposal would allow companies to pay workers less than minimum wage if they 'opted in,' and would include minors if their parents signed off. But Camfield says this bill will almost certainly be challenged and is less likely to pass. Several states have done away with work restrictions for teenagers over the past few years. Since 2023, three states have rolled back laws requiring minors to get youth work permits, including Iowa, Arkansas, and Alabama, according to research from the Economic Policy Institute. In 2024, Kentucky lawmakers voted on a bill to increase the total number of hours 16 and 17-year-olds can work per day and per week. And at the start of this year, Indiana passed a law that allows minors over 16 to work as many hours as they want and even removed the parental permission that was previously required for them to do so. Brit This story was originally featured on
