Here’s the thing: Lots of Republican leaning business owners see it as their right to retaliate against their workers without the gov intervening. So to them, the only thing they see wrong with this is the “child” part, because retaliation against children makes them look bad.
Hence the “they aren’t children” rhetoric.
By the way, this part of the bill was explicitly included by a congressman who owns some franchises and says his underage workers “don’t even want lunch breaks”.
So this is one dude trying to squeeze 20 extra hours of labor from literal children who’s dictating this for the entire state.