Florida House Bill 49

Florida House Bill 49 (HB 49) concerns child labor laws that would put many young students at risk. The United States has had a long, complicated history of abuse, mistreatment, and danger in the workplace, which hasn’t and isn’t limited to adults. Children in the workplace have been subjected to long and unrealistic hours in dangerous workplaces, and bills like HB 49 would oppose many efforts in the past few decades to protect children in the workplace.

HB 49 would treat students in the workplace like adults and would remove many limits set on 16 and 17-year-olds to ensure their safety in the workplace. HB 49 would eliminate break requirements, and allow students to work for over eight hours for any amount of consecutive days. This would make it easier for employers to force unreasonable hours on students, exhaust them, and take away time from their schoolwork, extracurricular activities, and time with friends and family.

Balancing work and school already isn’t easy, but HB 49 allowing for employers to ask or expect an unrealistic amount of hours from students would be detrimental to those students’ mental and physical health. Many students whose families rely on them for income report feeling like they have to compromise their education for money, and bills like HB 49 would negatively impact their ability to balance school and work.

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Citations

Rivero, Daniel. “‘We Are Children’: Push to Weaken Florida’s Child Labor Laws Draws Ire

from Opponents.” WLRN, WLRN, 2 Feb. 2024, www.wlrn.org/government

politics/2024-01-31/florida-child-labor-law-hb49.

“The Florida Senate.” House Bill 49 (2024) - The Florida Senate,

www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2024/49. Accessed 20 Feb. 2024.