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House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, outlined priorities Tuesday for the 2024 legislative session.
On the final day of Florida’s legislative session, state lawmakers approved one of the most controversial bills of the year, blocking local governments from requiring employers to provide basic heat safety protections for their workers, such as shade, water breaks, employee monitoring and “appropriate first-aid measures.”
It also bans cities and counties from regulating employers’ scheduling practices and, effective Sept. 30, 2026, from requiring employers they contract with to pay employees a rate higher than Florida’s minimum wage, which is currently $12 an hour.
Florida Gov. DeSantis signed the bill into law, with no fanfare or statement, on March 11, after regular business hours. He later rhetorically distanced himself from the bill, telling reporters during a press conference the day after that “it wasn’t anything that was coming from me.”
Florida’s House Bill 433 — modeled after bills that have failed to pass the Legislature before — almost didn’t make it through both legislative chambers this year, as its Republican bill sponsors added, subtracted and meticulously crafted its language to avoid a political disaster come election time for their Republican colleagues in swing districts. A few of those Republicans ultimately joined Democrats in voting it down.
But records obtained by Orlando Weekly through a public records request show industry lobbyists scrambled in the final days and weeks of the legislative session to ensure its passage, with a direct connection to the Florida House Speaker’s chief of staff.
“I haven’t texted you in weeks–HEAT cannot die,” wrote Associated Builders and Contractors lobbyist Carol Bowen in a text message to House Speaker Paul Renner’s chief of staff Allison Carter.
The text was sent on Thursday, March 7, the night before the final day of session, at 9:10 p.m.
“The entire business community is in lock step on this. Thank you for your attention to this concern” Bowen added.
[Editor’s note: Those who have been in Orlando for more than a decade may remember another nasty batch of lobbyist-led text bullying. In 2012, Orange County voters passed a referendum approving paid sick leave, and then-Mayor Teresa Jacobs — now chair of the Orange County School Board — was found to be texting with lobbyists from Darden, Disney and the Florida Chamber of Commerce even during a hearing on the matter, asking for talking points. No spoiler here: They were against it, even down to using some of the same messaging they’re using now.]
Sponsored by first-term Republican Rep. Tiffany Esposito, HB 433 was a priority of business lobbying groups this session, with backing from the Florida Chamber of Commerce — an influential force among both parties in the state Legislature, representing the interests of business giants like Disney, Publix and U.S. Sugar.
The Florida Chamber has sought to block local governments from mandating things like paid sick leave, advance notice of one’s work schedule, and wages higher than the state’s minimum wage for literally 20 years.
Other major lobbying groups — including the Associated Industries of Florida, an organization largely funded by companies like the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), Florida Blue, and TECO Energy this past quarter — were also in “lock step” on Esposito’s bill.
“Hey…looking for insight on HB 433. Are yall looking to put the wage stuff back on?” asked Associated Industries of Florida lobbyist Adam Basford in a text to Carter, on Tuesday, March 5.
The “wage stuff” — referring to part of the bill that would dissolve local living wage ordinances in communities like Miami-Dade and St. Petersburg — was cut from the bill by Senate bill sponsor Jay Trumbull (R-Panama City) that day, leaving the bill strictly about preempting local heat safety laws for workers.
That is, Trumbull’s amended version would solely prevent local governments from doing anything that would guarantee that outdoor workers, such as agricultural and construction workers exposed to Florida heat, would have the right to basic things like water.
“We obviously would like to see both the heat and the wage stuff get through but a little worried about what the Senate might do,” Basford texted.
No response from Carter.
“Can I please talk to you about HB 433?” Basford texted again, after 27 hours with no response.
The “wage stuff” was ultimately tacked back onto the bill on March 7, ahead of its final passage, along with a ban on local fair workweek laws (also known as “predictive scheduling”) and prevailing wage laws, which essentially require contractors that receive public money from local governments to follow established wage and benefit standards, some of which can be stronger than standards under state law.
The Chamber argues such mandates create a “patchwork of regulations” that unduly burden business owners. That was their argument, again, literally 20 years ago, and their lobbyists — and political allies — continue to parrot the same talking points today.
Public records show the Chamber drafted the “wage stuff” language and emailed that to Esposito on Nov. 14, the day after Esposito initially filed it.
As filed, the bill only targeted laws regulating heat exposure requirements for workers.
Metadata on the Word document sent by the Chamber also indicates that the Chamber collaborated with the Foundation for Government Accountability, a right-wing think-tank with connections to the governor’s office that has also lobbied for rollbacks to child labor law, anti-union legislation, and tougher eligibility requirements for social safety net programs like Medicaid, food stamps and unemployment assistance.
Esposito is herself president of SWFL Inc. — a regional chamber of commerce in Southwest Florida — and was first elected to her state House seat in November 2022.
Last year, she championed a law that similarly preempted local governments from enacting or maintaining local tenant rights ordinances that real estate lobbyists likewise characterized as creating inconsistencies for Florida landlords.
According to email records, the Florida Chamber increased the stakes the day before the end of session.
Carolyn Johnson, the Chamber’s chief lobbyist, sent out email blasts to state lawmakers on March 7 urging them to support HB 433, which was broadly opposed by Democrats, organized labor, environmental justice groups like the Sierra Club, and labor-conscious groups like WeCount! and the Farmworker Association of Florida that advocate for immigrant workers.
Specifically, Johnson (who texted Renner’s chief of staff Carter to “check in” that day) urged lawmakers to support amendments that would, in effect, add the “wage stuff” back in.
Such changes, Johnson wrote, were “important to the business community” in order to “continue to foster a business-friendly environment that will lead to the state’s continued economic growth.”
As an added pressure — or incentive — the Chamber added that lawmakers’ votes on the legislation would be double-weighted in their upcoming legislative report cards — or “How They Voted” reports to their members.
Such reports indicate lawmakers’ support for the Chamber’s priorities, with generally only Republicans making their “Distinguished Advocates” list. (Last year, for instance, the only Democrat to make that list was Orange County’s Sen. Linda Stewart, who’s term-limited from seeking reelection this year.)
Additionally, campaign finance records show the business lobby used more than just their words to push their members’ priorities.
Records show the Florida Chamber of Commerce, across its 11 main associated political committees, paid out roughly $1.44 million to the campaign accounts (and PACs) of state legislators and the Republican Party of Florida from Oct. 1, 2023, to March 31, 2024.
The Associated Industries of Florida similarly pitched in roughly $1.8 million to the campaign accounts, or associated committees, of state legislators and both major parties (with the bulk going to the GOP) in the same time frame across its six active PCs.
But it wasn’t just the Associated Industries and Chamber vying to get this past the finish line. As Bowen of the ABC of Florida implied, groups representing the restaurant and tourism industries (the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association) and lobbying groups for the home builder and agricultural industries were also in support.
Several of these groups have historically poured money into (unsuccessfully) blocking efforts to increase Florida’s minimum wage, and are affiliated with national organizations that push for similar anti-worker policies in other state legislatures across the country and on a federal level.
Opponents of Florida’s House Bill 433 — which can best be described as a preemption measure — have argued the legislation stomps on the powers of local governments and could result in pay cuts for thousands of working Floridians employed by government contractors, such as janitorial workers and airport employees who handle baggage and push passenger wheelchairs.
That threat is tied to the part of the bill that preempts local living wage laws, which aren’t established in all communities, but have been enacted in places like Miami-Dade County, Palm Beach County and St. Petersburg, where Florida’s minimum wage of $12 an hour — or roughly $24,960 annually — isn’t enough for a working adult or family to make rent, let alone live comfortably.
Rep. Esposito, the GOP House sponsor of the bill, admitted during session that employers could decide to reduce pay — the income that supports Florida’s working families — once this is effective.
“Could wages go down? Maybe,” she said during the bill’s first committee hearing. “It’s up to the prerogative of the employer.”
Thanks to a last-minute amendment by Republican Sen. Trumbull, that part of the bill won’t go into effect until Sept. 30, 2026 — the very day that Florida’s minimum wage is officially scheduled to rise to $15 an hour.
The preemption of workplace heat safety laws will go into effect July 1 — and there’s no mystery where that policy priority came from.
There is not a single city or county in Florida that currently requires employers to offer basic protections for workers who are exposed to extreme heat on the job.
But an effort to do so was underway in Miami-Dade County last year, thanks to years of organizing by outdoor laborers, until a vote on whether to approve such a policy was delayed.
Esposito filed the state preemption bill just a week later, preempting workplace “heat exposure” requirements to the state — meaning no city or county can enact regulations stronger than those under federal or state law.
As of today, there is no federal or state standard for protecting workers from extreme heat on the job — only federal guidelines, and a risk of being cited by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration for failure to foster a workplace that “is free from recognized hazards that are causing or likely to cause death or serious harm to employees.”
That agency, per direction from the Biden administration, is in the process of developing a federal heat safety standard, but that process could take years.
Efforts in Florida by Democrats to establish a statewide standard have gone nowhere, due to lack of Republican support. Democrats are outnumbered by the GOP in the state Legislature more than two to one.
The dangers of a failure to act aren’t hypothetical. A 26-year-old man who moved from Mexico to South Florida for work on a sugar cane farm through the federal H-2 Visa program suffered fatal heat-related injuries on the job last September.
The heat index reached 97 degrees the day he collapsed, according to a federal OSHA investigation. It was just his fourth day on the job.
The contractor who employed the young man, McNeill Labor Management, didn’t report the 26-year-old’s hospitalization or his death, which is required under law. The contractor faces just $27,655 in proposed penalties, an amount set by federal statute.
According to federal data, an estimated 36 U.S. workplace deaths related to environmental heat exposure were recorded in 2021, down from 56 deaths in 2020. Even OSHA, however, has admitted that records of heat-related illness and death on the job are likely “vast underestimates.”
For Johana Lopez, a local agricultural worker in Apopka, Florida who has seen coworkers pass out on the job from extreme heat, Esposito’s bill feels “unjust.”
For the business lobby, the bill “protects small businesses from ‘gotcha’ regulations” and creates “a stable environment where owners can grow their businesses.”
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