Senate child labor bill gets rewrite to limit teen workers on construction sites

Corey Simon takes the school choice banner, and runs with it.

While a bill to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to work longer hours is advancing steadily through the House, a narrower measure allowing teens to work on some construction sites in limited circumstances has started to move in the Senate.

The bill (SB 460) originally would have allowed 16- and 17-year-olds to work on roofs in residential and commercial construction sites. But the bill sponsor, Tallahassee Republican Sen. Corey Simon, rewrote the measure to bar them from commercial sites and jobs with scaffolding, roofs and ladders over 6 feet. The bill passed through the Senate Education PreK-12 Committee on a 9-2 vote.

“Scaffolding is still off the table. Roofing is still off the table,” Simon emphasized.

Although the House measure (HB 49), which allows teens to work until 11 p.m. and for longer hours with fewer breaks, has received vehement pushback from Democrats and youth and labor activists, Simon’s bill is focused more on expanding opportunities for career and technical education. It sets up a task force to study ways to expand such education and allows technical instruction to count toward course credit in high school.

Sens. Shevrin Jones, a Miami Gardens Democrat, and Rosalind Osgood, a Fort Lauderdale Democrat, expressed support for the move to expand career and technical education. But they voted against the bill over a provision repealing a requirement that electrician professionals known as “journeymen” complete training and pass a test to receive licenses issued by counties and cities.

“This is not the child labor bill,” Osgood said. “Our kids are a lot smarter than we think they are. … No, we don’t want them working instead of going to school. But for many poor kids, that’s the reality.”

The Senate version (SB 1596) of the more expansive HB 49, hasn’t received a hearing. But its sponsor, Sen. Danny Burgess, a Zephyrhills Republican, bemoaned the “rhetoric” surrounding his measure while applauding the merits of Simon’s bill.

“Some of the rhetoric around that has been completely atrocious and not factual and off-base,” Burgess said.

Similarly, Simon said “political conversations” shouldn’t get in the way of offering more opportunities to teens for on-the-job training ahead of entering the workforce.

“Not every kid is going to go on to our traditional postsecondary institutions and we do a disservice to them if we don’t offer pathways for them to have the success that they deserve and that they’re willing to work for,” Simon said.