Florida Advances Bill To Weaken Child Labor Laws for Construction Jobs
This week's state legislative round-up.
By Paul Blest, More Perfect Union
“Is this really what we want for our kids?
Last week, we led our state round-up with a bill in Indiana to let 14-year-olds drop out of school after 8th grade to go work on a farm. This week, Florida wants to free 16-year-olds from the shackles of not being able to work in construction, as part of just one of two child labor bills being pushed by a hard-right legislature.
Welcome to the 19th 21st century.
On Wednesday, the Senate Education committee heard testimony on SB 460, sponsored by Sen. Corey Simon, a first-term senator and former defensive tackle in the NFL. While much of the bill deals with expanding career technical education (CTE), SB 460 would allow minors as young as 16 to be “employed on any scaffolding, roof, superstructure, or residential or nonresidential building construction.”
Simon introduced an amendment prior to the hearing restricting work on the site a minor can do to under six feet from the ground. But it became clear during the hearing that Simon didn’t write the bill, as a lobbyist for the Florida Association of Builders and Contractors actually took blame for unclear language in the legislation, and Simon wasn’t able to immediately answer who would pay for medical expenses if a minor is hurt on the job.
But even after the bill was somewhat moderated by the height restriction, opponents of the bill such as Sen. Shevrin Jones and Jackson Oberlink of Florida Rising pointed out that the bill as written may conflict with federal labor law prohibiting any minors from working “on or about a roof.”
Oberlink suggested that the impetus for the bill was a labor shortage exacerbated by last year’s SB1718, the hardline anti-immigration law pushed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; nearly a quarter of construction laborers and roughly a third of roofers are undocumented, according to a 2021 study by the Center for American Progress.
"The solution to the labor shortage created Florida's bad and cruel policies is not to force our children to fill in the gap, but to raise the living wage in this state and provide more benefits to working families,” Oberlink said.
“Y'all, what are we doing here?" he added, exasperated. "Is this really what we want for our kids?"
The bill passed the committee anyway. As Orlando Weekly reported, one of the bill’s cosponsors, Sen. Keith Perry, is a contractor who has been sued at least six times for wage theft. (Florida has no Department of Labor, and just seven state employees investigate child labor violations.)
Meanwhile in the House, HB 49 would allow employers to schedule minors for shifts longer than eight hours and for more than 30 hours a week total, and the bill’s chief sponsor, Rep. Linda Chaney, argued that 16-year-olds are not children but rather “youth workers.” That bill is awaiting a third hearing in the House, but anti-child labor activists — and yes, writing that phrase was depressing for me, too — are fighting its passage and protested at Chaney’s office in the Capitol Tuesday.
The hard-right drift in Florida has only accelerated since the start of the pandemic, with the GOP now dominating every level of government. But earlier this week, a Democrat flipped a special election seat that DeSantis won by 12 points in 2022.
What’s happening in the states
Virginia bill aims to reduce the influence of energy behemoth: Fresh off recapturing the legislature in November’s elections, Virginia Democrats have a bill that would ban Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power from charging their customers to fund their lobbying activities, including recovering their dues to trade associations that advocate for higher utility bills. Dominion has long been both one of the state’s most dominant political actors and one of its most exploitative corporations, overcharging customers on their electric bills by at least $2 billion while also being the single biggest political donor in Virginia outside of the political parties over the past 30 years.
Several states have already banned investor-owned utilities from using consumer money, and if Virginia follows suit, it would show the utility’s influence isn’t as dominant as it once was. At the very least, customers wouldn’t be paying to undermine their own interests.
Medicaid expansion in deep-red states: Political leaders in both Alabama and Mississippi have recently expressed openness to Medicaid expansion, which would mark a significant turn in the states’ posture amid a crisis of hospital closures. Alabama House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter told Alabama Public Television last week that there are “so many hospitals in dire straits” that “we’ve got to have the conversation” about expansion.
New Mississippi House Speaker Jason White and House Public Health and Human Services Committee chair Sam Creekmore, meanwhile, have both said they want to consider the policy, Gov. Tate Reeves has opposed expansion, but very nearly lost his re-election campaign against Democrat Brandon Presley last year.
A prescription drug board to cap prices in Illinois: Laws creating prescription drug affordability boards (PDABs) to curb drug prices have been passed in several states over the past few years, and Illinois may be the next to join them, as lawmakers introduced a bill to do just that this week. Giving the legislation extra heft is that the most powerful Democrat in the legislature, House Speaker Chris Welch, has signed on as a co-sponsor.
In Michigan, a PDAB bill passed the Senate last year but failed to receive a hearing in the House. Sen. Winnie Brinks said last month that the bill, backed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, is a legislative priority this year.
We’re all trying to find the corporation that did this: AirBnB is forming a “housing council,” chaired by former Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, to advise the company on issues related to housing supply and affordability. Here’s one place they can start: a 2020 study found that AirBnB units “increase the supply of short-term rental units and decrease the supply of long-term rental units,” and that a 1 percent increase in listings drives rents up $9 and median home prices up $1,800.
What we’re reading
Fast-food giants overwork teenagers, driving America’s child labor crisis | Lauren Kaori Gurley and Emmanuel Martinez, The Washington Post
Every Pay Bump Is an Admission of Guilt | Hamilton Nolan, How Things Work
When Families Need Housing, Georgia Will Pay For Foster Care Rather Than Provide Assistance | Stephanie Stokes, WBAE/ProPublica
‘Shell game’: When private equity comes to town, hospitals can see cutbacks, closures | Anna Claire Vollers, Stateline
It's hard to wrap my head around the fact that a lot of the people who make inhumane laws just don't care. I know it's true; it's just hard to imagine, for example, legalizing child labour.