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Parents could let teens older than 16 work 30+ hours per week, if Gov. DeSantis signs this bill • Florida Phoenix [1]

['Jackie Llanos', 'More From Author', '- March']

Date: 2024-03-08  

The Florida Legislature passed a bill Friday allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to work more than 30 hours per week with their parent’s approval. The measure lawmakers approved on the last day of this year’s session is a scaled-back version of the proposal that had garnered criticism from worker advocacy groups.

The bill, HB 49, passed on a 76-33 vote in the House and a 27-11 vote in the Senate. Gov. Ron DeSantis will consider the bill next.

If it becomes law, Florida minors older than 16 would be able to work more than 30 hours per week if a parent, guardian or school superintendent fills out a waiver. Teens of those same ages could work more than eight hours on weekends and holidays.

Homeschoolers and students attending virtual schools, who are 16 and 17 years old, would be able to work any hours without limitations. Broward County Democratic Rep. Robin Bartleman said the bill had good guardrails but raised concerns about the exception for homeschoolers and virtual school students.

“My fear is that you’re going to now put a child in a situation where their parent or guardian can exploit them to work as much as an adult,” she said.

While the final version of the bill establishes a 30-minute break requirement every four hours for teens working more than eight hours per day, employers could still schedule 16- and 17-year-olds to work for more than six consecutive days.

Originally, the House GOP proposal would have allowed minors older than 16 to work the same hours as adults with no required breaks. Senate President Kathleen Passidomo said the bill was too broad before the chambers settled on the final bill.

“What you look at when you’re talking about children being able work. I think the original thought was there are some 16-year-olds, 17-year-olds that want to be able to work longer than just the few after-school hours, and I support that,” she told reporters on Thursday. “They get parents’ permission, that’s really critical. It’s something they want to do. I’d like to see them not working at fast food restaurants, I’d like to see them working in places that give them skills and knowledge and would give them a basis for what they may want to do in the future.”

House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell connected the effort to roll back child labor laws to a shortage of workers.

“I’ve been very disappointed and disturbed to see the Republicans trying to solve the labor shortage by relaxing child labor laws. And oftentimes they try to talk about this in terms of apprenticeship programs, but I think there’s a better way to solve the labor shortage and that is to pay people what they are worth and make sure that they can afford health care.”

Groups such as the Florida Policy Institute have contended that the bill is not as harmful as the proposal discussed during committee meetings.

“We’ve been a staunch opponent of HB 49 since the bill was first introduced last fall. While we do not support any rollback of long-held child labor protections, the bill passed last night rightly preserves the existing work curfew for 16- and 17-year-olds in state law, maintains breaks for longer shifts, and does not completely remove current daily and weekly work limits,” the group’s CEO Sadaf Knight wrote in a statement.

“Florida Policy Institute, our partners in the child well-being and labor spaces, educators, and parents had worked hard to build awareness around and advocate against the legislation’s most concerning provisions. Thanks to that sustained upswell of opposition, the final bill — in terms of child labor provisions — does not pose the same degree of risk to Florida’s youth as the original version.”

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[1] Url: https://floridaphoenix.com/2024/03/08/parents-could-let-teens-older-than-16-work-30-hours-per-week-if-gov-desantis-signs-this-bill/

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