Cheered on by chain restaurants, Florida Republicans push forward with a bill to let businesses make teenagers work longer hours during the school year
But Florida lawmakers also postponed a hearing on another controversial bill that would allow businesses to cut wages for tens of thousands of workers around the state.
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After shutting down public testimony and cutting off debate, Republicans in the Florida House of Representatives forced a bill forward Wednesday that would allow businesses to make teenagers work more during the school year.
On a 10-5, party-line vote, the House Regulatory Reform & Economic Development Subcommittee approved House Bill 49, which would eliminate decades-old child-labor protections that prevent employers from ordering 16- and 17-year-old teens to work after 11 p.m. on a school night or for more than 30 hours during a school week.
The legislation would wipe out all such scheduling restrictions and allow businesses to have 16- and 17-year-olds work the same hours as adults.
The sponsor of the bill — Rep. Linda Chaney, a Republican from St. Pete Beach — said she filed the legislation in part to provide more labor for Florida’s tourism industry.
“Being in a tourist area of Florida and knowing the needs of the hospitality industry…I felt this was a common-sense bill," Chaney said.
Among those permitted to testify during the public hearing was a lobbyist for the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association, a front group for the tourism industry, whose members include Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando and the parent companies of Burger King, Outback Steakhouse and Olive Garden, among others.
Samantha Hunter Padgett, a vice president at the restaurant and lodging association, told lawmakers that the proposal to unwind child-labor laws had received “overwhelming positive feedback from our members” and that it would “expand available staffing.” Records show the legislation was originally written by a right-wing think tank financed by a billionaire Republican donor.
The Republican-controlled committee also began to hear another controversial bill: House Bill 433, which would stop communities across Florida from passing local laws that make corporations pay higher wages, provide better benefits, or ensure safer workplaces for their workers.
But the committee ultimately decided to postpone a vote on that particular piece of legislation. Lawmakers will return to the bill in January, when the Legislature formally begins its annual, 60-day lawmaking session.
The weakening of child labor laws is happening in red states throughout the country. Some, if not all, do not allow for lawsuits by injured children or their parents if a child should die as a result of his/her employment.
As indentured servitude/slavery grows within the red states, it will be the corporate design should Republicans sweep the election next year. Minimum wage laws will disappear, and as more babies are being produced to feed the greed of the wealthy, children will not require an a education past basic reading and math skills, easily accomplished by third grade.
Republicans know exactly what they're doing. It's quite smug for Chaney to get up there shilling for the Restaurant industry and her high dollar donor to get kids to make up for the lost labor after they passed that disastrous undocumented immigrant bill. To any sane parent out in Florida, CALL HER TODAY and demand she disqualify her bill. You see the Republicans in Tallahassee coming back year after year trying and winning to gut laws in place to protect people. They only people they are protecting are their donors. I don't get why Floridians Democrats let this happen. You must get out and vote this year. This is wrong on so many levels. A kid under 18 is a "youth worker" according to Chaney. Well, if they aren't children, let them read the banned books after all it sounds like you are calling a 16 year old "an adult" because they can work adult shifts.