WI Senate Bill Would Extend Workday For Minors: 5 Things To Know

MILWAUKEE, WI — The Wisconsin Senate passed a bill Wednesday that would permit children under 16 to work longer hours.

Senate Bill 332 would let minors under 16 work between 6 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. on days before a school day and between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m. on other days.

Current state labor law allows children under 16 to work only between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. from the day after Labor Day to May 31 and between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. from June 1 to Labor Day.

The new bill wouldn't apply to workers covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, according to the bill. It also wouldn't cover businesses that made less than $500,000 in a year or engaged in commerce across state lines, according to testimony from the Committee on Labor and Regulatory Reform.

The Assembly must also approve the measure before it goes to Gov. Tony Evers' desk to be signed into law. Assembly Bill 324 goes before that chamber this week; it has the same goals as the Senate bill.

The Wisconsin Restaurant Association, which favored parts of the bill, said in a statement that its members wouldn't be able to make up for losses and debts incurred in 2020. But restaurant and bar sales rose 6.8 percent in July 2020 compared to July 2019, according to a recent Wisconsin Policy Forum report.

Wisconsin restaurant and bar employment remains down 8.8 percent, or 20,000 workers, since 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic took off, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum report. Job recovery in the sector was weaker in Wisconsin than in most U.S. states.

Here are five things to know about the Senate bill.

• The bill allowing 14- and 15-year-old workers to have longer hours would benefit seasonal businesses such as restaurants and golf courses that have difficulty finding workers for the tourist season, the bill's author, Sen. Mary Felzkowski (R-Irma), said in testimony.
• Stephanie Bloomingdale, president of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO, said in a hearing that the bill would create two sets of rules for working teens: Those who work at employers covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act and those who work for employers that aren't. "All of Wisconsin's 14- and 15-year-old children are owed the same level of protection that our state has provided over the past 100 years."
• Minors under 16 who work after 10 p.m. should receive at least eight consecutive hours of rest from the end of one shift to the beginning of the next, according to the bill draft.
• The Department of Workforce Development can fix the duration of lunch and rest periods for workers under 16, but can't limit hours of employment or issue orders fixing maximum hours of employment per day or per week, according to the bill draft.
• Current Wisconsin labor laws say that 14-15-year-olds can only work 3 hours on a school day and 8 hours on a non-school day. The bill said that workers under 16 can't work for more than 18 hours in a school week or 40 hours in a non-school week.