Florida Ban on Protections for Outdoor Workers Goes Into Effect Amid Record Heat

Public records obtained by the Orlando Weekly showed that Associated Builders and Contractors lobbyist Carol Bowen sent a text message to the chief of staff of House Speaker Paul Renner, saying, “I haven’t texted you in weeks — HEAT cannot die.” Another lobbyist from Associated Industries of Florida texted asking “Are you all looking to put the wage stuff back on?” referring to the living wage preemption component, which at one point was cut from the bill.

The Florida Chamber of Commerce would go on to further pressure lawmakers by threatening to double-weight the vote on HB 433 in their legislative report card, meaning they would be doubly penalized for voting against the bill. This report card can later be weaponized against lawmakers in political ads and is used by the chamber to determine who to donate to and against, with the chamber giving $1.44 million to campaign accounts from October 2023 to March 2024 and Associated Industries of Florida giving about $1.8 million in the same time frame.

These are the same lobbying interests that in the same legislative session supported a rollback of child labor protections to allow minors to work more than eight hours a day and more than 30 hours a week during the school year. They also lobbied for a state-level preemption of rent stabilization measures that were approved by voters in Orange County.

HB 433 was ultimately passed on March 8, around the time that Miami-Dade County would have taken up its deferred ordinance to establish local heat stress protections. Reached for comment, the Farmworker Association of Florida noted that the “same lawmakers and governor who unanimously supported common sense heat protections for student-athletes” did not extend the same protections to the “hard-working communities that produce the food that sustains us, and that build and maintain the critical infrastructure that we rely on.”

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