Florida Wants Your Teen To Work Weekday Night Shifts, Because 'Parental Rights'
Well, someone has to, now that they're deporting all of the immigrants.
Good news, Florida parents! Republicans in your state Legislature are here to fight for your rights! Which rights? Really important ones that you surely hold very dear. Like the right for your teen’s employer to make them work overnight shifts on school nights, without a meal break, just as you have always dreamed.
This comes just a year after they pushed through laws that allowed parents to sign a waiver allowing their children to work more than 30 hours a week. That was nice and all, but isn’t it inconvenient to have to “sign a waiver” just so a soulless corporation can profit off the back of your very tired and hungry 14-year-old child? Sure sounds like it to us! So this new law will just eliminate that bit and protect your parental rights for employers to schedule kids for whenever they want, for as many hours as they want.
Currently, the laws still require that 16- and 17-year-olds work fewer than 30 hours a week, for no more than eight hours in a day when they have school the next day, bars them from working between 11 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. on school nights, and even requires employers to give them a “meal break” for 30 minutes per four hours.
Thankfully, Sen. Jay Collins (R-Tampa) and other Republicans have introduced SB 918, which will do away with all of those pesky restrictions — not just for 16- and 17-year-olds, but for many 14- and 15-year-olds as well, so long as they have a high school degree, GED, a letter from their school superintendent, if they are homeschooled, or if they qualify on a “hardship basis.” The proposed law would eliminate restrictions on the number of hours they can work in a day or week, when they can work, and the requirement for meal breaks.
“This is a parental rights issue,” Sen. Collins told the Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee earlier this week.
You may be asking yourself “Why do these Republicans suddenly care about my God-given right for my child’s employer to exploit the fact that they are willing to work for lower wages than most adults and don’t require benefits?” I will tell you! It is because of all the deportations.
You see, because Florida is working hard at deporting all of the undocumented immigrants for no reason that actually benefits anyone beyond entertaining them and making them feel good about themselves (and which, in fact, actually hurts a lot of people), Florida’s employers now need a new source of cheap labor. And they’ve found one — your children!
Just like in World War II, when women had to join the workforce while the menfolk were off fighting in Europe, the state of Florida now needs your children to step up and take on the responsibility of working long hours without a break and for very little money, so that we can all enjoy watching people get ripped from their homes and sent to horrific torture prisons in El Salvador because they had the wrong tattoo.
Now, you may be wondering, “But wait! We were told that if they deported all of the immigrants, these companies would hire Americans! We assumed they meant American adults!” But that is where you were wrong. The job market isn’t as tight as it was under Biden, but it’ll be a while before too many adults are scrambling to work for minimum wage overnights at the Piggly Wiggly and/or a meatpacking plant.
If this goes well, we could see the elimination of all child labor laws in the state. Imagine how proud you’d be, seeing your 8-year-old operate heavy farm equipment for 12 hours without eating!
Now, you may also be thinking, “Don’t they care about the children’s education? Or at least about them staying out too late?” and the answer is that no, of course not. Because the less educated your children are, the more likely they are to vote Republican when they turn 18, so that even more labor laws can be kicked to the curb. Not to mention, all that staying out late working instead of focusing on schools may even lead to them getting knocked up — and, ideally, deciding to get married young instead of going to college, just like the Heritage Foundation wants them to. Oh! I’m sorry — just like you want them to.
Because, after all, this is all about parental rights.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
"A self-supporting and self-respecting democracy can plead no justification for the existence of child labor, no economic reason for chiseling workers' wages or stretching workers' hours."
― Franklin D. Roosevelt
Just saw the images of Kristi Noem with her Rolex in front of cages full of half naked brown men. JFC, there is no fucking bottom.