Ron DeSantis has issued a change in child labor laws that will allow the opportunity for teens to be able to work longer hours despite previously held rules limiting this time on school days.
The most notable of the primary reforms going into effect is the altered amount of work hours that a 16 year old can work in a single week. 16 year-olds will now be able to work more than 30 hours in a week which allows them to work longer hours even on a school day. “It is about giving more parental rights and children more access to jobs,” said Tampa Republican state senator Jay Collin to NPR (National Public Radio) news.
A major concern being brought up regarding the sudden increase in the numbers of students being able to work is that they will be more inclined to focus more on their jobs than school which will in turn lead to them starting to perform poorly and in extreme cases dropping out altogether. “What’s wrong with expecting our young people to be able to work part time now? I mean like, that’s how it used to be when I was growing up.” said DeSantis in response to these concerns.
Despite the fact moving pace these changes appear to be happening under, there are still hesitancies popping up about kids not being able to be kids. “It’s essentially treating teens who have developing minds and bodies to be treated like adults, and this allows employers to schedule them for unlimited hours, overnight and without breaks, and this is during the school year. We’re not just talking about The Jungle by Upton Sinclair,” said Alexis Tsoukalas, senior policy analyst at the Florida Policy Institute.
One speculation that can cause such drastic measures to happen is the sudden urge to place a more strict rule that forces a conflict against the immigration that occurs in the country and the way that the US wants to send them back. “The only short-term answer to workforce shortages has always been net migration and they’ll never go for that because of their politics. So their only answer is to widen the parameters of who can work, and you either go older or you go younger, and they chose to go younger,” said Thomas Kennedy, spokesperson for the Florida Immigration Coalition to The Guardian news.
