Kids as younger as 14 might quickly be allowed to work in a single day shifts in Florida as a part of a push by the Republican-led legislature to alleviate labor shortages they attribute to the deportation of undocumented immigrants.
In line with CNN and different shops, the trouble to ease labor legal guidelines in Florida particularly comes as Gov. Ron DeSantis advocates for “dirt cheap” labor to interchange the work as soon as completed by the very immigrants Republicans have been so wanting to boot from the nation.
“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 stated final week.
The Sunshine State has been regularly loosening its youngster labor legal guidelines for years. CNN studies that the legislature handed a regulation in 2024 permitting homeschooled 16- and 17-year-olds to work “any hour of the day.”
However Florida isn’t alone on this push. In recent times, GOP lawmakers in different purple states like Arkansas, Indiana, and Iowa have handed legal guidelines making it simpler for youngsters to work longer hours and tackle extra jobs—seemingly to fill poorly paid and undesirable positions that employers as soon as relied on undocumented staff to fill.
“The consequences are potentially disastrous,” Reid Maki, the director of the Little one Labor Coalition, which advocates in opposition to exploitative labor insurance policies, advised PBS Information. “You can’t balance a perceived labor shortage on the backs of teen workers.”
However the want to place children to work solely appears to be ramping up. One report discovered that since 2021, 28 states launched payments to weaken youngster labor legal guidelines, and 12 states really enacted such legal guidelines. By comparability, 14 states launched new youngster labor-related payments in 2024 alone.
What’s worse, some unscrupulous companies aren’t even ready for states to move legal guidelines that permit kids to work. In Might 2023, a number of McDonald’s franchises in Kentucky have been accused of hiring a mixed 300 kids, a few of them reportedly youthful than 10.
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Republicans could argue they’re submitting and passing these payments for sensible causes, akin to addressing labor shortages in a aggressive market. However the extra seemingly rationalization for the surge of recent youngster labor payments is that Republicans wish to cut back laws on companies—utilizing youngster labor as a instrument to immediately assault longstanding federal security guidelines.
It’s already authorized for youngsters to tackle sure jobs or paid internships, and youngsters from middle- or upper-class households have been capable of take benefit of those alternatives for years. However the Republican lawmakers pushing for looser labor legal guidelines aren’t centered on making it simpler for teenagers to babysit or work the drive-thru at a quick meals chain. As an alternative, they’re aiming to permit 16-year-olds to cowl evening shifts.
And, conveniently for them, they’ve allies within the White Home who appear completely okay with this.
A report from the Heart for American Progress revealed that Challenge 2025, the conservative blueprint for Donald Trump’s second presidential administration, advocated for rolling again youngster labor legal guidelines as a result of … children like hazard?
“Some young adults show an interest in inherently dangerous jobs,” Challenge 2025 claims. “With parental consent and proper training, certain young adults should be allowed to learn and work in more dangerous occupations.”
Members of Trump’s Cupboard have additionally turned a blind eye to youngster labor. Earlier this month, newly appointed Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer bragged about slicing $33 million from her division’s funds, together with a program that helped regulate and forestall youngster labor overseas.
What’s additionally working within the Republicans’ favor is the truth that enforcement of kid labor legal guidelines has been lax. Past the Kentucky incident, a November report by Arkansas Advocates for Kids and Households revealed a staggering 266% enhance in state-level youngster labor regulation violations between the fiscal years 2020 and 2023.
With enforcement already weak, it’s no shock that some companies and legislators are making the most of the scenario to push the boundaries additional—with out a lot pushback.
The invoice being thought of by the Florida Legislature would take away employment time restrictions for 14- and 15-year-olds if they’re homeschooled or attend digital college. Below present regulation, these kids are at the moment prohibited from working sooner than 6:30 AM or later than 11 PM.
If handed, this might have disastrous penalties. A report from the Florida Coverage Institute warned that these kinds of payments might “reverse decades of child labor protections in Florida” and famous that youngster labor violations in Florida had already risen from 95 in 2019 to 281 in 2022.
Past the authorized ramifications of passing such a measure, it’s maddening that Republicans are counting on kids to repair the labor scarcity created by their very own xenophobic insurance policies. In any case, it was Republicans who took a harsh stance on immigration and pushed for extra deportations—insurance policies that economists have lengthy warned would result in labor shortages and inflation.
But, as purple states proceed to weaken youngster labor legal guidelines in an ill-fated try to repair the issue they created, the message from some lawmakers appears clear: Employers deserve extra flexibility—even when it’s on the expense of defending probably the most susceptible staff.
