Florida's plan to replace migrant workers with children falls apart

Republican state Senator Jay Collins, the bill's sponsor, said the measure was about parental rights: "We should let them say what's best for their kids at 16- to 17-year-olds, that's what we're saying by this."

Anyone who puts forth a measure aimed at "parental rights", it's always something that's aimed at parents' right to treat their children like property

Every one of these is always "Parent's Rights Act" and the text is like "murdering your gay/trans 10-year-old is now totally legal".
- "My kids are in need of a proper traditional upbringing, which means locking them in a box and tenderizing them like veal, until they're old enough to be sold at auction."
It would also have scrapped required 30-minute meal breaks
It's a parent's right to make sure their child works an 8 hour shift with no breaks! Breaks are socialism!
- They've already scrapped mandatory water breaks for outside workers :(
"You should be able to give your child a job at a slave wage in awful conditions. That's a parental decision.
"What if I want to give my child the opportunity to explore their gender identity? Thats a parental decision too."
"Off to the gulag with you all."
~~states~~parents rights!
Why is it always about slavery?
Funny how you never hear them say “parental responsibilities.”
Like how is the female property to keep the children in line if the children aren't also property?

The bill would have permitted 16- and 17-year-olds to work overnight on school days and work longer than an eight-hour day before a school day. Some 14- and 15-year-olds would also have been allowed to work those hours.

This is a horrifying concept and a great way to keep kids uneducated so they keep voting for lying repubs when they get older.

Governor Ron DeSantis said during a panel discussion in March: "Why do we say we need to import foreigners, even import them illegally, when, you know, teenagers used to work at these resorts, college students should be able to do this stuff? … What's wrong with expecting our young people to be working part-time now? I mean, that's how it used to be when I was growing up."

They also used to work in factories where they'd get maimed and other high-risk environments. Shall we bring that back too, Governor Dipshit Fascist? Seriously, get fucked.

They are framing it like plucky shirtless college boys might wanna go pick cucumbers for a weekend to make a few bucks for rootbeer floats down at the soda-fountain.
One of the things that infuriates me about our species broadly is how terrible people are at visualizing actual, real systems and their scope and scale.
If you don't know anything about the factory-farming our society requires to survive, you should probably take a short tour of the massive machine we've built and depend on so you understand the scale of the problem and why even the immigrants we have/had now aren't even enough to keep the system running. This is why aging populations are a huge problem, this is a foundational cornerstone of our whole civilization, much like medicine and vaccines, and it's being waved off like something we can just swap out demographics for funsies and to give bro's trying to afford their new baseball mitts and textbooks, all good, right??
- I mean, they could work a summer picking produce and have enough money to buy a house, at least that's what the old man down the street told me. And he owns a house, so I bet he would know.

Do they even purify the drinking water in Florida? .... or are people there just this stupid?

Like from the toilet?
- This one goes in the mouth and this one... No, wait
Large population of boomers with a lifetime of lead poisoning, and they vote.
- Maybe that was the case 20 years ago, but today there native son Gen-X and Millennial shits are voting just as hard R as the old folks used to. I’ve been here the whole time and watched the whole state transition from “haha” dumb to “dude, wtf?” dumb.
- I'm not giving them lead as a pass. There's a huge swath of Boomers who are just shitass, toxic, hateful people. They never grew out of their angsty, entitled bitter selves, and most are broadly uneducated, and resentful despite failing upwards for 30-40 years as a confluence of luck.
DeSantis just outlawed fluoride in water and my city just… went along with it. It’s the dumbest state and I can’t wait to leave.
- Wait what? you actually want fluoride in your drinkwater???
I hear mercury is a tasty exotic beverage in Florida.
The place is surrounded by sea and riddled with swamps, how dare you try to homogonize all the tasty natural flavors.
Corrupt government. Look at the number of Senate votes against their district: https://digitaldemocracyproject.org/bills/employment-of-minors-hb1225-2025

I mean, that’s how it used to be when I was growing up.

The fact that "how it used to be" in your childhood produced a scumbag like you is a compelling argument to not let people's childhoods be like that anymore.

"I was beaten as a child and I ended up fine" says man who beats children.
I mean, that’s how it used to be when I was growing up.
Also, this is complete and utter bullshit. I'm older than Ron boy, and child labor laws predate me. The folks picking crops in the fields in the 80's and 90's were the same immigrants that are (or were, I guess) doing it today. And anyone who attended Yale almost certainly wasn't out picking crops as a kid. Like most members of the GOP, he has zero attachment to reality.

lol do American politicians seriously try to frame child labor laws as taking away parents rights?

When I was a kid, my mom was outraged that somebody made the statement, "children aren't their parent's property."
So, yeah
Currently every politician making a name for themselves will frame anything they can in any way they can. Words have little meaning lately so you just say whatever the fuck you want and worry about the angle later.
- It’s just embarrassing for people that this works on. So stupid.
part of the conservative ideology is that children are property and should be molested, not heard.
In ancent rome there was a law,that went something like "you cannot sell your son into slavery a third time". Americans would see that as a violation of parental rights
- Third? The fuck did someone do to cause that?! Was there some dude who sold his son into slavery and then said son got out of slavery at least three times so the Romans had to pass a law to keep that from happening again? Why do I get the feeling Crassus was involved.
Of course! Especially those from the party that wants crops to be picked, but doesn't want anyone who would actually do it to exist or survive in our country. And because the term "child labor" in general is unpalatable to most people. For good reason...
- Sounds like a right nightmare ya got goin on there bud

So let me get this straight. The US needs Migrants so much that we're needing to replace them with teenagers?

I mean, that's one way to look at it.
The more accurate way to look at is that the American right hates migrants and people of color so much that they would force their children into hard labor just to make sure nobody who sounds or looks different receives any kind of benefit.
- Not their children.... other peoples children. You know... the poors... those kids can work long hours for low pay and since they are poor, they will be stupid enough to be happy about it. The people voting for this do not need to worry about it affecting their kids... or think they dont....
- the American right hates migrants and people of color so much that they would force ~~their~~ other people's children
This country has, throughout its entire history, relied heavily on immigrants to make up the shortfalls in its labor force. A full stoppage of immigration is going to collapse the United States economy. Sooner than later.
Yes, if we remove our migrant population then we literally lose the majority of our food production workers. I think it'll also impact our construction work force, much of our factory workforce, our waitstaff, and various other jobs US citizens turn their noses up at - because those jobs literally would not sustain them and would destroy their bodies over time. Most of these jobs are sustained entirely by the desperation of immigrants trying to escape their prior circumstances.
Edit- added more detail in bold to make it clearer the the issue lies in how these jobs are conducted rather than being with US citizens.
- jobs US citizens turn their noses up at
  Jobs that typically don't pay enough for the cost to your body, health, and mental sanity. The overlords love the illegal immigrant stuff because it lets them put the thumbscrews to the workers, both in terms of downward pressure to the wages paid out, and in terms of desperation so the people without other options are forced to work in horrible conditions for terrible pay.
Whoa whoa whoa, teenager is already a bit old and commands more hourly
Farms have historically used their children as free labor back when they were mostly family owned. That's why most schools here have a three month summer break. Now they want the factory farms to have that same perk, just with other people's children.
Now that you're saying. Really expected them to use actual 9 year old children for this. But even so, it doesn't look like a bright future if they're forcing adolescents and young adults into slavery.

On the same day this came out, University of Florida scientists announced a possible new treatment for cancer - not a type of cancer, ALL cancers. It works by stimulating the immune system to kill the tumor, and it's based on a treatment for glioblastoma that had highly successful human trials last year. Hard to believe these same two developments both came out of the nutbin of Florida.

You got me for a second there.
I thought you would make a "the onion" joke of florida plan's to send cancer patient to work the fields as a "treatment" for cancer.
I'm surprised (and kinda of relieved?) that your comment is actually about a new scientific discovery.
- Oh yeah it's very exciting. In 2024 a vaccine that targeted glioblastoma, an especially nasty brain cancer with an almost zero survival rate. The vaccine mimics certain aspects of tumor cells, triggering a fast, vigorous immune response that attacks the actual tumor. Encouraged by the results, they've somehow generalized the vaccine over the past year to stimulate an immune response to cancer cells in general. Immunological therapy is totally different from chemo or radiation, and a generalized approach is vastly different from what the whole field has been doing for decades. Very promising.
- 1, 2, 3, 98 99 100 here I go!
  Hey, found you! And yes, I can time and space travel to this comment out of this one https://lemmy.world/comment/18397250
Here's an article for those who want to know more.
That happens like all the time, but they never work (yet!). Cancer is so agressive, dividing so fast, and thus adapting through mutations that nothing really works fully.
But maybe it will kill some of them, and let's not stop trying! Fuck cancer.
- It's mRNA based, if I recall.
  This makes it, essentially, endlessly flexible. We can now take a sample, sequence it, find the mutations, simulate what the protein looks like when folded, generate* the correct complimentary protein for that target and write the actual amino acid sequence directly into mRNA and give it to the patient.
  This is currently incredibly expensive because it's being done manually by labs full of PhDs. But every part of this process is being rapidly improved and made cheaper.
  mRNA based medicines have amazing promise. For example they had the COVID vaccine designed less than 12 hours after sequencing the virus.
  *using a diffusion model, like AI image generators but they produce amino acid sequences that generate arbitrarily shaped proteins
That is nothing new. Immunotherapies have been around for at least 10 years.
- Thanks, I had hope for a few seconds.

what's the news here? They are basically using the same arguments the US used to not ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Minors being the parents property is still an almost uncontroversial position in the US even if people don't phrase it like that.

See also: the troubled teen industry. Ir parenting is too much work, you can send your kid to torture school.
- Every last one of those places needs to be burned down, the staff and investors should be hanged.
The news is that USA is still a disgusting labor camp. Always has been.

Not surprising. They didn't plan ahead whatsoever and thought "it'll all work out" as if Conservative promises held more weight than the hot air required to speak them.

Well, the reason it didn't work out now is obviously the Democrats somehow.

Governor Ron DeSantis said during a panel discussion in March: "Why do we say we need to import foreigners, even import them illegally, when, you know, teenagers used to work at these resorts, college students should be able to do this stuff? … What's wrong with expecting our young people to be working part-time now? I mean, that's how it used to be when I was growing up."

And a lot of things were different for your great-great-grandparents, and yet here you are not living as they did, you cheesedick dumbfuck.

Capitalist rule: If you can't exploit people, just find people who are more exploitable.

Next step: to the jails and concentration camps for slave labor.

You should pay more attention because we've already been doing that this whole time.
Good thing the north left a loophole in the constitution after the civil war just for a situation like this.
- Some things never change.
Also, anyone who wants to access government services. Want Medicaid? Work in the fields. Want Social Security? Work in the fields. Want Food Stamps? Work in the fields? Want Medicare? Work in the fields. Etc.
If you already have a couple of jobs, send your children to the fields. It's not like they're getting a useful education anyway. Most of it will be MAGA propaganda about how much better it is for kids to work in the fields instead of the classroom, because it keeps the evil foreigners out of our country.

Actually surprising that the Republicans didn't just push it through as they have a majority, but one can be happy about every news story like that

This bill is completely disgusting and exploitative. We’re talking about Florida, though, so I expected it to pass.

I want to shove bamboo under the fingernails of that asshole who was likening child labor to a “part time job”.

Why did the children keep falling apart? Were they made of wet cardboard?

The front fell off

There's I think a dollop on the brassero program that details a past program where they'd ship high schoolers to farms for the summer in an attempt to reduce migratory workers. The program failed immediately. Conservatives are insane in the literal definition of the word.

I haven't listened to the dollop in a minute but I'm pretty sure that same episode is literally about the first wave of illegal immigration propaganda in the US, talks about how the borders changed in the 1930s.

Paw... I think I got the black lung

...what about DeSantis Dachau?...plenty of labour there...

I'm sure it's only a matter of time.

Newsweek states on their own website that this article is unfairly leaning left. What a strange editorial decision.

It's an unfortunately looking vote gauge (it's like a poll where readers decide whether it does lean on either side or not), not their opinion about the article.
- Its a design decision that is bafflingly stupid. People will use this as evidence of bias.
- yeah, it appears that they just took some generic gauge animation, in which arrows always tend to start on the left-hand side (think any of the gauges in your car.) Once you vote it does tell you that the most popular opinion is that it's center/fair

I can't wait to be out of Florida

Best decision I ever made

Oh, who could have foreseen that...

Florida's what now?

Great, a short joke targeting children!
\ They are children!

/s

The kids want more "thumb time."

Brand new sentence???!!!

What is this comment supposed to mean?

The teenage babysitters I know demand a higher hourly rate than Target workers in my locale (at about $18/hr). I don't think the farmers are ready to pay that for young people who are not work hardened and can't keep their phones out of their hands for longer than 5 minutes. It is not like they will starve if they don't pick enough. After all, their parents will be there, helicoptering, handing them bottles of lifewater and snacks and uploading pics and vids on their phones on their social media accounts.

Why don't you go work in the field? We need all the top shots out there, get on it buddy.
Congratulations. This is the most Boomer-ass comment I have ever read on Lemmy.
Signed,
A 40-Year Old Millenial.
Children should grow up and use their energy for learning, so that they aren't doomed to become slaves for the prison industry in a future where people without solid education are not able to do more than work in the fields or clean offices.
But i know, y'all don't need that, because all the stuff that made america great in the 50's and 60's was invented by farm workers and office cleaners... or might it be that all that made america great came from the minds of the top educated of their fields, you know, scientists - you will need new ones in the future, since the ones living right now are fleeing the US as fast as possible to escape the braindead fascism that has taken hold of the country.
You should start begging your children to stay in school, your future depends on it.