State Rep. Susan DuBose (R-Hoover) is hoping the Senate will pass her bill that expands eligibility requirements for minors who want to gets jobs after school hours.
Currently, if a person is 14 or 15 years old, the child has to get permission from the school before being allowed to get a job. DuBose’s bill would eliminate that requirement.
The legislation passed the house this week and is making its way through the Senate.
The state lawmaker discussed the bill Wednesday on WVNN’s “The Yaffee Program.”
“So of course minors can already work in the state of Alabama, 14 and up, but 14 and 15 year old are required to get a permission slip or a work permit from an administrator at their school. And I feel like that just overreach,” DuBose said. “I don’t think the government should be controlling what kids do after school hours. That should be up to the parents and students. At that age they are only allowed to work three hours a day and they can’t work past 7pm. This is by federal and state law. So there’s so many protections in place.”
DuBose said teenagers can learn some needed skills by finding a job at that age.
“I just think that what you can learn from working after school from 4 to 7pm is very valuable,” she argued. “And the social skills, the discipline, the work ethic, you learn how to make money, how to manage money, and if students and parents feel like they have time to do that, I think they should be allowed without getting a permission slip. A permission slips almost sometimes makes it feel like you’re not really supposed to be doing this and you need special permission to do it. And I just don’t think it should have that barrier to employment.”
DuBose also explained that this bill doesn’t remove all restrictions on employing minors.
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“So it’s passed out of the house. We had bipartisan support on that,” she said. “And I think once people understood that we still have protections in place. Students, 14 and 15 year olds cannot, even all the way up to 18, students or teenagers cannot work in unsafe or hazardous conditions. There’s 17 different types of conditions that they cannot work in. So they’re in a safe, supervised environment. And I think it’s a wonderful learning and educational opportunity for students.”
The lawmaker understands some of the pushback she received concerning the legislation, but thinks those concerns don’t really apply to this specific law.
“I understand that concern,” she said, “because it does say it’s a child labor bill, and that automatically sets off alarm. And we have had people breaking the law in Alabama where they’ve had 12 year olds working in unsafe conditions. So I completely understand people’s concern…They’re not in unsafe conditions. But we do have a situation in Alabama where we have… the lowest unemployment or the lowest work workforce participation rate in the nation between 16 and 24 year olds. So it’s just giving them an opportunity to learn about work, learn the work ethic in a state limited capacity.”
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee
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