Florida bill meant to roll back child labor protections fails to pass

After facing public backlash, plus criticism from some Republican lawmakers, a Florida bill that sought to roll back certain child labor protections has officially died in the state Senate, following the conclusion of Florida’s 2025 regular legislative session.

Florida’s 60-day legislative session concluded Friday, May 2. State lawmakers were unable to hammer out a state budget, however, and will return to Tallahassee May 12 through June 6 to pass a spending plan for the next fiscal year.

The child labor bill (HB 1225) was approved by the Florida House last month, largely along party lines, with Republicans in support and Democrats opposed. Records first obtained by Orlando Weekly show that the bill language came from staff within Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office.

Staff within the Executive Office of the Governor did not respond to a request for comment on the bill’s death in time for publication.

The bill, if approved, would have gotten rid of restrictions on the number of hours that 16- and 17-year-olds could work per week during the school year. It would have also eliminated mandatory 30-minute meal breaks for 16- and 17-year-olds, and would have allowed teenagers as young as 14 who are home-schooled or enrolled in virtual school to work overnight shifts, even if they had school the next day.

Student activist groups, in addition to the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP, public school teachers, the Florida AFL-CIO — the state’s largest federation of labor unions — and the Florida Parent Teacher Association opposed the bill. The only entities to publicly show support for the bill were Moms for Liberty, a right-wing “parental rights” group, and the National Federation of Independent Business.

“I think every family needs to make that decision for what’s best for them, instead of having the government tell them what’s best,” said Florida Rep. Monique Miller, a Moms for Liberty activist and cyber security executive by trade who sponsored the bill.

When questioned by Democrats about the risk of exploitation that children could face on the job, if rollbacks were enacted, Miller explained, “God gave us a great barrier for that, and that is parents.” Parents, she added, “can definitely oversee what children are allowed to do.”

Miller, a first-term state representative from Brevard County, stated her intent with the bill was to align Florida’s child labor regulations with federal rules.

Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, only minors aged 15 and younger have restrictions on the number of hours they can work per week and how late or early they can work while school is in session. Work rules outside of the school year are looser on this front, both under state and federal law.

The Foundation for Government Accountability, a right-wing think tank that drafted child labor rollbacks approved by Florida lawmakers last year, has used a similar talking point to its own arguments for loosening child labor regulations.

“Lawmakers should roll back state laws that are more stringent than federal laws, aligning state and federal labor laws,” a 2024 paper published by the FGA reads. “Lawmakers should also create state-level exemptions for local teenage curfews, allowing young people to work earlier in the daytime and later in the evening.”

The FGA, headquartered in Naples, has been a driving force in a burgeoning movement to weaken child labor laws in Republican-controlled states, along with industry trade groups. The group also has ties to Gov. DeSantis.

The group has historically worked in lockstep with DeSantis to advance anti-DEI policies and undermine public sector labor unions. FGA CEO Tarren Bragdon served on DeSantis’ transition team when he was first elected Governor, and is currently vice chair of the state’s Government Efficiency Task Force, a panel first established in 2007 that’s focused on improving the efficiency of government operations. Bragdon was appointed by DeSantis to serve on the panel in 2023.

“As you decide whether or not to vote to remove child legal protections in Florida, you should also know that the billionaire funder and CEO of this think tank [FGA] pushing this bill served in the governor’s transition committee and was appointed to Florida’s government efficiency task force by the governor,” said Yenisbel Vilorio, with Six Action Fund, speaking to a panel of House lawmakers.

“I ask our Florida state elected officials to do the right thing and not support a bill being pushed by billionaires across the country.”

As the state and federal government under the Trump administration continue their crack down on immigration, DeSantis has openly floated replacing the labor of fleeing or deported immigrants with teenagers. “Why do we say we need to import foreigners, even import them illegally, when teenagers used to work at these resorts?” DeSantis asked, during a March panel with Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan.

A ‘nay’ from some Republicans

While Miller’s bill passed the Florida House with votes of support from all but one Republican (Tampa Rep. Susan Valdes), several Republicans had nonetheless expressed some reluctance to move forward with the proposal.

“I think we need to let kids be kids,” admitted Republican Sen. Joe Gruters, during a heading on the Senate version (SB 918), sponsored by Sen. Jay Collins, R-Tampa.

Gruters added that he was confident in the state’s current process for allowing parents to seek a waiver for certain child labor restrictions for their child. “I think we should allow kids to work the hours that they’re allowed now with the waiver system.”

Currently, under Florida law, minors age 16 and 17 cannot work between 11 p.m. and 6:30 a.m. when they have school the next day. They also cannot work more than eight hours per day during the school year, more than 30 hours per week, or for more than eight and a half hours without a meal break. Miller and Collins’ legislation aimed to get rid of all of that.

“This is a parental rights issue,” Collin argued, no doubt piquing the attention of the Moms for Liberty representative in the chamber who waived in support of the bill. “And frankly, we’re not talking The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.”

Florida’s child labor law already includes exemptions for children who are employed by their parents, children working in the entertainment industry, pages for the Legislature and children working in homes as babysitters, for example.

Critics argued that child labor rollbacks would undermine parental rights by giving more power to employers to schedule children for long hours, rather than the choice of the parent to obtain a child labor waiver.

“Understand this right now: Parents and students have the flexibility,” argued Dr. Rich Templin, legislative director for the Florida AFL-CIO. “This bill takes that flexibility away and gives it to the employer, because the employer can say if you don’t stay late, you can be fired and I’ll find somebody who can.”

There are more than 100,000 minors in Florida’s workforce as it is, according to the Florida Policy Institute, and the vast majority of those who are eligible to work (at least 14 years old, for certain jobs) are already doing so.

“Most teens looking for work in the state have it already, and 72 percent are currently juggling work and school,” argued Florida Policy Institute analyst Alexis Tsoukalas.

The Senate version of the bill, however, failed to advance past its first committee stop, and the Senate neglected to take up the House version once that made its way over to the upper chamber.

It’s not the only controversial bill that failed to pass ahead of session’s end. Other bills that failed to pass the finish line including legislation that sought to allow employers to legally pay more workers less than minimum wage, gut labor protections for temp workers, and make it harder to qualify for Florida’s meager unemployment benefits.

Bills supported by labor advocates that would have set statewide guidelines for heat safety protections on the job and established a state labor division to enforce Florida’s minimum wage were also ignored.

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This article appears in Apr 30 – May 6, 2025.