Florida Republicans advance bill that would weaken child labor regulations for teens as young as 13

A Florida House panel has approved a bill that would allow certain 13-year-olds to begin working. It would also get rid of restrictions on the number of hours per week that older teenagers can work during the school year, as well as mandated meal breaks currently required under law.

The bill (HB 1225), sponsored by freshman Florida Rep. Monique Miller, was advanced through its first of three committee stops Tuesday by a 12 to 6 vote along party lines, with only Rep. Susan Valdes, R-Tampa, joining Democrats in opposition.

“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 Miller, a self-described “parental rights” activist.

She further responded to voiced concerns from Democratic colleagues about children being exploited on the job. “God gave us a great barrier for that, and that is parents,” she attempted to reassure, conveniently ignoring parents who abuse or otherwise exploit their own children. “Parents can definitely oversee what children are allowed to do.”

According to the Florida Policy Institute, there are more than 100,000 workers in Florida under the age of 18 in the workforce who are currently protected by state child labor regulations that child welfare advocates in the 1980s pushed to make stronger than those mandated under federal law. Specifically, protections for workers aged 16 and older.

The federal Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 only restricts permitted work hours for minors under 16. Sixteen- and 17-year-olds, under the FLSA, aren’t covered by similar rules.

“This bill is designed to more closely align Florida with federal regulations,” said Miller, echoing a talking point previously stated by Sen. Jay Collins, R-Tampa, the sponsor of a similar bill in the Florida Senate.

Another year, another child labor bill

The Florida Legislature last year, following the example of other Republican-controlled states in recent years, already undermined restrictions on the number of hours that minors aged 16 and older can work, specifically, at the behest of a right-wing think tank funded in large part by billionaire and GOP mega donor Richard “Dick” Uihlein. The latest proposal would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to work full-time.

The chair of the House Industries & Professional Activities Subcommittee, which heard Miller’s bill on Tuesday, limited public testimony to 30 seconds — due to the number of people who were signed up to speak against the proposal.

The chair, Rep. Mike Giallombardo, also instructed security to remove 20-year-old activist and University of Florida student Cameron Driggers, after Driggers brought up bill sponsor Miller’s affiliation with Moms for Liberty.

Moms for Liberty, a right-wing “parental rights” organization founded in Florida during the COVID-19 pandemic has advocated for the removal of certain books from schools and limiting discussion of race and LGBTQ+ identities. The Southern Poverty Law Center has described it as an anti-government “extremist” group.

“No, sorry, just please remove him,” Giallombardo instructed, moments into Drigger’s limited period for public testimony.

Getting more young people on the job

HB 1225 would allow 16- and 17-year-olds in Florida to work an unlimited number of hours per week during the school year, and would get rid of mandatory 30-minute meal breaks they are currently required to have during any shift of four hours or more.

It would also allow children age 14 and 15 who are home-schooled, enrolled in virtual school, or who have earned a high school diploma to work an unlimited number of hours, seven days per week without mandated meal breaks during the school year.

Currently, Florida’s legal working age for most jobs is 14 years old, with exemptions for children employed by their parents, children who work in homes (e.g. babysitters), and children who deliver newspapers.

But the bill, previously targeting minors as young as 14, was specifically amended Tuesday to also allow minors to work “beginning the summer vacation of the calendar year in which he or she turns 14 years of age” — meaning, 13 year-olds could also begin working, ahead of their birthdays.

Miller explained Tuesday that this proposed amendment (which doesn’t appear in the Senate version) came directly from new Congressman Randy Fine and his wife.

“His wife called and said, ‘Our son, who’s a mature and very wonderful young man, David Fine, wants to be able to work in summers,’ and it makes perfect sense,” Miller argued. “But unfortunately, his birthday is late in the year, and so their request was: Is it possible to let teenagers who are going to be 14 that year not miss out on their one summer to go work, or [be] subject to the conditions of federal law?”

If federal law is stricter than state law on child labor regulation, then the stronger standard applies, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, and vice versa. Business owners in Iowa last year learned that the hard way.

According to the Florida Policy Institute, because federal law generally prohibits minors under 14 from working (with limited exceptions), the proposed rollback of Florida’s working age would likely just affect 13-year-olds hired for work in agriculture — an industry with fewer child labor regulations that has suffered labor shortages since immigration policies approved by Gov. DeSantis in 2023 drove immigrant workers out of the state.

“The Governor said recently that because of the manufactured labor shortage that they have caused with their anti-immigrant policies that he is fine with us now filling that gap with our own children,” said Jackson Oberlink, a lobbyist for the progressive advocacy group Florida Rising, referencing comments DeSantis made during a recent panel with President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan.

“This is also a wage shortage. If lawmakers truly cared about fixing it, they’d be raising wages, not forcing kids to fill in the gaps left by corporate greed and anti-immigrant policies.”

“The bill is not necessary”

Driggers, the student activist, told Orlando Weekly in a phone call afterwards that he himself began working at a young age. Like other young people who spoke against the bill on Tuesday, he’s concerned about how rollbacks to current regulations would negatively affect teens on the job today.

“My first job was at age 14, at Publix, at the height of the pandemic in 2020, where I was expected to do the work that other employees wouldn’t do,” said Driggers. “It was literally too dangerous [for] the older employees.”

House Bill 1225, he said, would allow employers to reasonably expect teenagers to do that kind of work full-time, while gutting mandatory 30-minute meal breaks that are currently required for workers under 18 who work shifts of four hours or more.

“This bill is for people and families already entrapped in the cycle of poverty,” Driggers added. “And this, instead of having students develop themselves through education and other opportunities, it keeps them in a cycle where they feel pressured to work bad, dangerous jobs for minimum wage at a young age.”

“This bill is for people and families already entrapped in the cycle of poverty”

Not a single person spoke in favor of the bill during public testimony. At least half a dozen people spoke against it, including labor leaders, student and youth activists, and public school teachers. More than two dozen others, including representatives of the Florida Immigrant Coalition and NAACP, waived in opposition to the bill.

Dr. Rich Templin, a lobbyist for the Florida AFL-CIO, pointed out that Florida already has a process in place for parents to waive restrictions on the number of hours their teen is allowed to work while school is in session. “All the flexibility that students might want is already available. The bill is not necessary in any way, shape or form,” he argued.

The risk for exploitation, including sexual harassment and wage theft, were also brought up by opponents, including Democratic lawmakers with children. Multiple investigations in recent years from the New York Times and others have exposed widespread exploitation of migrant and undocumented youth, specifically, in Florida and elsewhere.

Florida also does not have a state agency tasked with upholding wage and hour laws, nor any department dedicated to protecting workers’ safety on the job — including for adults. Florida lawmakers are currently deliberating other proposals that would allow employers to pay interns and apprentices less than minimum wage, and undermine labor unions — key proponents of child labor protections.

“I think that we want our children to work — I get it,” said Rep. Michele Rayner, D-St. Petersburg. “I want them to have the responsibility, but there’s ways in which to do it that is protective of children and not exploitative.”

Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, emphasized the potential broader implications of undermining child labor law. “When you saturate the workforce with cheap labor — and this will be what happens — it impacts every workers’ bargaining power, every worker’s ability to advocate for better benefits and for better wages,” she argued. “So it’s not just even impacting children.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has already indicated that he is supportive of filling immigrant labor shortages with teenage labor. “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,” DeSantis stated during a panel last month. “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.”

Miller’s proposal would need to clear two more committee stops, and secure majority approval from both the GOP-controlled House and Senate, in order to pass. Then DeSantis would be in a position to sign it into law or veto it.

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This article appears in Mar 26 – Apr 1, 2025.