For more than 20 years, the state of Florida has lacked a state labor department, which was once tasked with enforcing Florida’s state minimum wage and other wage and hour laws.
That’s right: While Florida has the nation's third-largest workforce, it’s also one of just a few states that lacks even a single dedicated investigator on the state payroll tasked with looking into wage violations, which the labor department used to handle. And very few people in elected office — Democrat or Republican — ever really talk about it.
Former Florida governor and failed presidential candidate Jeb Bush (“Please clap”) prioritized the abolition of the state’s Department of Labor and Economic Security early on in his first term, in the early 2000s, and the state legislature moved forward with dismantling it in 2002.
As it stands, no such agency exists in the state today. But “it’s not for lack of trying,” Florida Sen. Victor Torres, an Orlando Democrat and self-described “labor guy,” told Orlando Weekly.
Legislation filed by Torres — a former union cop and bus driver — in the state Senate (SB 1598) and Rep. Angie Nixon, D-Jacksonville, in the Florida House (HB 137) sought to reestablish a state labor department.
I did. It just makes sense that we in the “Free State” of Florida would look after workers and assist in combating wage theft. According to @FloridaPolicy, Florida workers lost an average of $1.32 per hour between 2005-2019. This is only likely to get worse with our min. wage...
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