A bill to expand the hours 14- and 15-year-old kids can work in Wisconsin is up for a vote in the Assembly on Thursday, January 20.
Contact your Assembly Representative today in opposition of expanding child labor work hours.
About the bill: Senate Bill 332 / Assembly Bill 324 expands the permissible hours a 14- and 15-year-old can work, allowing kids to work earlier in the day and later at night. Specifically, the bill would allow Wisconsin children whose employers are not covered by the Federal Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to work 6:00 a.m. until 9:30 p.m. on a school night and from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. on a non-school night. Senate Bill 332 passed the Senate and is now scheduled for an Assembly floor vote as Assembly Bill 324.
We can’t solve the worker shortage on the backs of 14- and 15-year-olds. All of Wisconsin’s children are owed the same level of protection that our state has provided to teenage workers over the past 100+ years. The solution to filling open positions in Wisconsin and beyond is simple. It needn’t involve prematurely pulling our kids further into the workforce, as Senate Bill 332 would allow. Instead, employers need to pay living wages worth working for and address the imbalance between worker productivity and compensation that for decades has kept too many families from earning a living wage.
A part-time job can be an important part of a young person’s development. Young workers learn job skills and a work ethic that serves them well in later years. But the priority for young teens must remain their education. They should have adequate time to study, to sleep and to imagine the road ahead of them. Using them to irresponsibly fill gaps in the workforce is in neither their nor society’s interest.
Contact your Representative in opposition of Assembly Bill 324 today.
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