CHICAGO CITY HALL (WBBM Newsradio) -- Restaurant and bar workers in Chicago are still in line for a pay raise this summer, after aldermen in City Council failed to override Mayor Brandon Johnson's veto of a proposed wage freeze.
Representatives of labor and restaurant groups packed the Council gallery for the debate during Wednesday's Council meeting, which focused on whether the city's law phasing out the so-called tip credit in Chicago's minimum wage should be paused. Right now, the "tipped" minimum wage is $12.62, compared with the city's standard minumum wage of $16.60.
West side Alderman Gilbert Villegas told colleagues the city's restaurants were struggling with higher expenses for everything, including labor.
"They're reducing hours, and they're reducing staff," said Ald. Villegas (36th Ward). "And that's counter-productive, that's not what we want. This is just saying pause. Not going back to the $9 figure that was there ... but really, a pause."
Alderperson Jessie Fuentes from Humboldt Park sponsored the original tipped-wage phase-out, called One Fair Wage. She told colleagues she's committed to a meeting with all sides next week to find other wats to help struggling restaurant owners.
"We cannot shift the burden onto labor to say 'You do not deserve a raise today because everything's too expensive,'" said Ald. Fuentes (26th Ward). "It is not a moment to take away pay raises from people when everything is more expensive."
Thirty aldermen voted for the override. That's four votes shy of the 34 needed.
Villegas said the effort to pause the wage law is not over: "There will be a Round Two."
Aldermen also gave final approval to an ordinance giving cab drivers their first fare increase in ten years, raising the per-mile charge from $2.25 to $2.79. In addition, the Council confirmed Mayor Johnson's appointment of Kenya Merritt to be the city's new commissioner of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.
And just as the meeting was wrapping up, aldermen ended a months-long stalemate over Council leadership by making Villegas the chairman of the powerful Zoning Committee. The move introduced by Aldermanic Black Caucus chair and South side Alderwoman Stephanie Coleman headed off an attempt to install the committee's longtime acting chair, North side Alderman Bennett Lawson, on a permanent basis.
Lawson (44th Ward) has held just one zoning committee meeting all year, and said he would not lead any more meetings as acting chairman. He's been in that role since the departure of retired Ald. Walter Burnett. Lawson's decision has caused a backlog of development projects awaiting zoning action.
Villegas had been the chair of the Economic, Capital and Technology Development; that panel will now be chaired by Southwest side Alderman Derrick Curtis (18th Ward).
Aldermen fall short in override; cab fare increase approved
Aldermen fall short in override; cab fare increase approved
