Florida House votes to loosen child labor laws a year after tougher immigrant employment law
Thu, February 1, 2024
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A year after Florida enacted a new law making it more difficult for employers to hire immigrants in the country illegally, the House passed a bill Thursday to let 16- and 17-year-olds work longer and later hours.
Supporters said teenagers and their parents know how to best manage their time and activities and lifting employment restrictions will help them build careers and earn money, especially with the current labor shortage. Opponents said the changes would make it easier for employers to exploit children and longer hours could negatively affect schoolwork.
“Nearly 1 million searches have been performed for ‘How can I get a job as a teen.’ They want to work. This bill gets government out of their way to choose a path that’s best for them,” said Republican Rep. Linda Chaney, who sponsored the bill.
The bill would remove restrictions prohibiting 16- and 17-year-olds from working more than eight hours when they have classes the next day and from working more than 30 hours a week when school is in session. The House passed it on an 80-35 vote.
Democrats opposing the bill argued that current law allows students plenty of time to work and attend school. Rep. Anna Eskamani questioned whether the measure was being proposed because the state's immigrant employment restrictions are making it more difficult to fill some jobs.
“The elephant in the room is that we see a labor shortage in different parts of the economy and part of that is tied to decisions this Legislature has made when it comes to immigration,” she said.
She also said employers should pay adults more for less desirable jobs rather than relying on children.
“I have concerns with saturating the workplace with cheap labor, which will make it harder for every person to be paid a wage they can live on,” Eskamani said.
The Senate has a similar bill that doesn't go as far as the House. Republican Senate President Kathleen Passidomo said she's heard too many concerns from parents about “young people working all hours of the day and night and not sleeping and not getting an education.”
The Senate bill needs approval from two more committees before reaching the full chamber.
"We want to allow students or kids that want to work to do that, but our number one priority is to make sure that they don’t sacrifice their education,” Passidomo said.
Brendan Farrington, The Associated Press
Florida Guard looks like DeSantis’ own militia —with no Legislature to keep him in check
THE NEW KINGFISHER
Opinion
the Miami Herald Editorial Board
Thu, February 1, 2024
After pulling the plug on his struggling presidential campaign, Gov. Ron DeSantis is again flexing his muscles in his home state with an announcement that he would send the Florida State Guard — custom created for him — to the Texas border.
The U.S. southern border crisis — and inaction by Congress and the White House to address the record numbers of people crossing it — have given DeSantis the perfect excuse to concentrate more power in his own hands via what looks more and more like his own taxpayer-funded militia.
The Legislature already revived the Florida State Guard and then expanded it at his request. Now lawmakers are working to give him even more power to deploy the unit while making it harder to hold its members accountable for on-duty acts.
DeSantis said Thursday State Guard members would be deployed to Texas alongside members of the Florida National Guard and Florida Highway Patrol troopers. Texas and the federal government are at a standoff over the state’s efforts to block migrants from crossing the border by setting up a concertina-wire barrier. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Biden administration could take down the barriers but Texas has vowed to continue erecting them — now with the help of Florida.
“The goal is to help Texas fortify this border, help them strengthen the barricades, help them add barriers, help them add the wire that they need so that we can stop this invasion once and for all,” DeSantis said at a press conference in Jacksonville.
In 2022, DeSantis pushed the Legislature to revive the State Guard, which had been inactive since 1947. The civilian volunteer force was originally planned as a non-military mission meant to provide relief after disasters like hurricanes but it has quickly evolved. Lawmakers expanded from 400 to 1,500 members and allowed DeSantis to deploy them out of state, while also allocating $100 million for planes and boats.
Following a surge of migrants arriving by boat in the Keys last year, a special unit took part in combat training in the Panhandle where trainees learned to use rifles, practice “aerial gunnery” and treat “massive hemorrhages.” Some military veterans who volunteered to be part of the State Guard quit over its militia-style training.
This is a far cry from handing out water bottles and hurricane relief supplies and closer to something resembling DeSantis’ own militia. That’s a realistic danger considering his authoritarian tendencies and how his rhetoric on immigration has grown more extreme with calls to shoot suspected drug smugglers “stone cold dead” at the Southern Border.
By granting DeSantis so much authority, the Legislature doesn’t seem to be considering what a future governor could do with the same powers.
And yet the Republican-led Legislature is now advancing a bill that would give the governor — whether that’s DeSantis or someone else — even more flexibility to activate the Guard. Under House Bill 1551, the governor could use the force during ”a declared state of emergency, period of civil unrest, or any other time deemed necessary and appropriate.” The legislation also would make it harder for people to sue members of the Guard for actions they committed while on duty by making plaintiffs pay for everyone’s attorney fees if they don’t prevail. Guard members would also be entitled to an attorney paid for by the taxpayers in criminal or civil court.
“Any other time deemed necessary” appears to be in the eye of the beholder. Let’s go back to the summer of 2020, when DeSantis proposed an “anti-riot” law following Black Lives Matter protests — despite the fact that, unlike in other parts of the country, the Florida protests were largely peaceful. What could the governor have done with a military-style State Guard that answers to him only?
DeSantis has used fear — of BLM protesters, “woke” culture and, now, an out-of-control Southern border — to justify spending millions of taxpayer dollars to make him more powerful. The Florida Legislature, so far, has shown no desire to keep him in check.
Click here to send the letter.
the Miami Herald Editorial Board
Thu, February 1, 2024
After pulling the plug on his struggling presidential campaign, Gov. Ron DeSantis is again flexing his muscles in his home state with an announcement that he would send the Florida State Guard — custom created for him — to the Texas border.
The U.S. southern border crisis — and inaction by Congress and the White House to address the record numbers of people crossing it — have given DeSantis the perfect excuse to concentrate more power in his own hands via what looks more and more like his own taxpayer-funded militia.
The Legislature already revived the Florida State Guard and then expanded it at his request. Now lawmakers are working to give him even more power to deploy the unit while making it harder to hold its members accountable for on-duty acts.
DeSantis said Thursday State Guard members would be deployed to Texas alongside members of the Florida National Guard and Florida Highway Patrol troopers. Texas and the federal government are at a standoff over the state’s efforts to block migrants from crossing the border by setting up a concertina-wire barrier. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Biden administration could take down the barriers but Texas has vowed to continue erecting them — now with the help of Florida.
“The goal is to help Texas fortify this border, help them strengthen the barricades, help them add barriers, help them add the wire that they need so that we can stop this invasion once and for all,” DeSantis said at a press conference in Jacksonville.
In 2022, DeSantis pushed the Legislature to revive the State Guard, which had been inactive since 1947. The civilian volunteer force was originally planned as a non-military mission meant to provide relief after disasters like hurricanes but it has quickly evolved. Lawmakers expanded from 400 to 1,500 members and allowed DeSantis to deploy them out of state, while also allocating $100 million for planes and boats.
Following a surge of migrants arriving by boat in the Keys last year, a special unit took part in combat training in the Panhandle where trainees learned to use rifles, practice “aerial gunnery” and treat “massive hemorrhages.” Some military veterans who volunteered to be part of the State Guard quit over its militia-style training.
This is a far cry from handing out water bottles and hurricane relief supplies and closer to something resembling DeSantis’ own militia. That’s a realistic danger considering his authoritarian tendencies and how his rhetoric on immigration has grown more extreme with calls to shoot suspected drug smugglers “stone cold dead” at the Southern Border.
By granting DeSantis so much authority, the Legislature doesn’t seem to be considering what a future governor could do with the same powers.
And yet the Republican-led Legislature is now advancing a bill that would give the governor — whether that’s DeSantis or someone else — even more flexibility to activate the Guard. Under House Bill 1551, the governor could use the force during ”a declared state of emergency, period of civil unrest, or any other time deemed necessary and appropriate.” The legislation also would make it harder for people to sue members of the Guard for actions they committed while on duty by making plaintiffs pay for everyone’s attorney fees if they don’t prevail. Guard members would also be entitled to an attorney paid for by the taxpayers in criminal or civil court.
“Any other time deemed necessary” appears to be in the eye of the beholder. Let’s go back to the summer of 2020, when DeSantis proposed an “anti-riot” law following Black Lives Matter protests — despite the fact that, unlike in other parts of the country, the Florida protests were largely peaceful. What could the governor have done with a military-style State Guard that answers to him only?
DeSantis has used fear — of BLM protesters, “woke” culture and, now, an out-of-control Southern border — to justify spending millions of taxpayer dollars to make him more powerful. The Florida Legislature, so far, has shown no desire to keep him in check.
Click here to send the letter.
No comments:
Post a Comment