Cracking down on employers hiring undocumented workers has been a priority for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration for years. But the policy has led to lots of low-wage or undesirable jobs standing vacant. CNN reports that the state legislature and Gov. DeSantis’ solution to filling these vacancies is making its way through the state senate in the form of harmful child labor law rollbacks. Rollbacks, which are detrimental to child workers, making them more vulnerable to exploitation and modern slavery.  

“Teenagers should be able to do this stuff” 

Florida is one among several U.S. states that have been dangerously rolling back child labor protections over the last few years. Just last year, Florida’s state legislature passed a law allowing home-schooled 16- and 17-year-old teens to work any hour of the day. Now they have advanced a bill that would even further loosen child labor laws.  

The CNN article states: 

“If the new law is passed, children as young as 14 years would be able to work overnight jobs on school days.” 

Currently, state law prevents children from working earlier than 6:30am or later than 11pm. The new law would change all that as well as other risky rollbacks. Those include the elimination of working time restrictions on teenagers aged 14 and 15 if they are home-schooled. The legislation also ends guaranteed meal breaks for 16- and 17-year-olds.  

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