Proponents of the Cook County minimum wage hike that Northbrook voted 6-1 to opt out of say they haven’t given up, and will try to persuade the town’s village board into passing its own wage increase.
The Northbrook Working Families Coalition said it will meet individually with trustees to press for a one-time increase for Northbrook workers from the state minimum wage of $8.25 to $10. The Cook County ordinance brings the wage up to $10 on July 1, but also adds another dollar every year until 2020, and after that, raises wages by inflation, not to exceed 2.5 percent in any year.
“It certainly seemed to be something they were open to,” said group organizer Tracy Katz Muhl, citing a May 23 comment by veteran Trustee James Karagianis.
“If you were asking me, can we go to 10 (dollars an hour) right now … I’d go for it in Northbrook instantly,” Karagianis had said, adding that the current wage was “truly too low.”
Then, and this week, he said he couldn’t agree to an ordinance that had more than one increase.
“I don’t want automatic escalators,” he said Monday.
Muhl argued Monday that pro-wage-hike residents represent a majority in Northbrook. She said there was a 4-1 margin in the roughly 100 pre-vote letters to the village supporting the increase.
“I see connections to activism, electing people who are going to do what the people want,” she said.
“Our goal is to make them understand that business as usual is no longer going to continue,” said fellow coalition activist Herb Brenner. “A lot of people in Northbrook care about this issue.”
Business owners care, too, and several wrote letters and testified in favor of opting out of the county increase, though they appeared outnumbered during meetings by wage-increase proponents.
Business owners may be less opposed to a one-time wage increase. Steve Lewis of Lewis Floor and Carpet, who wrote an extensive letter to the Village Board in favor of the opt-out, said Monday that a one-time hike to $10 wouldn’t be a problem for him.
“I pay more than that to all my people already,” said Lewis, a leader on the Northbrook Industrial and Commercial Development Commission, which asked for the opt-out. “Even my part-time stock help from the local high schools gets $12 an hour.
“There’s a shortage of competent blue-collar labor in Northbrook, and anyone who is going to compete for it has to pay more than” the state minimum,” he said. “I don’t think a $10 floor is unreasonable. But I don’t think that we ought to project into the future to $15 in three or four years.”
The village has already taken a small step toward its own minimum wage increase. In order to opt out of the county wage hike, Northbrook and other municipalities had to pass an ordinance tying their minimum wage to the state’s, Northbrook Village Attorney Steve Elrod said Monday.
A state bill to raise the minimum wage was passed by the General Assembly May 31. It would raise the wage to $15 in 2022, but start slow, rising up to $9 in January.
“A wage bill got through the House and the Senate,” Muhl said. “We have a governor who won’t sign it.”
Gov. Bruce Rauner called the bill “extreme.”
Muhl said that her group intends to get Northbrook started at $10 and be poised for a further state-mandated increase in the wake of the November, 2018, election, at which time she expects activists statewide to help elect a governor who will sign a wage bill.
“It’s been six years for the state government, and eight for the federal government” to pass a minimum wage increase, she said.
More Top Picks Best Dress Shoes For Plantar Fasciitis Men
The local bill will have challenges, however, Village President Sandy Frum, said Monday.
“I think that he problem is that we have no way of enforcing something like that,” Frum said. “We do not require business licenses for all our businesses (so) we don’t even know what businesses we have.”
She said that even if the village becomes aware of a violation, it lacks an in-house court system like the county has to enforce its code.
As with other municipal violations, the village would have to take its cases to the Cook County Circuit Court, where, she said, judges “kind of look at them as if they’re not worth our time, and throw them out.”
She said she wouldn’t want a new code that couldn’t be enforced.
“I don’t like feel-good legislation,” she said.
Muhl said that she would expect some enforcement work to be done by the village, but wouldn’t expect it to be costly unless a staffer would have to be added to the payroll. Even if it did, she said, she believes it’s the right move for the village.
“We saw in Chicago and elsewhere, (wage increases brought) zero economic loss, zero loss of jobs,” she said.
Consideration of the group’s initiative couldn’t be taken by the Northbrook Village Board until June 27, and it would be unlikely even then, because four board members will be traveling and harder to reach this month.
Meanwhile, the Working Families group, which garnered 250 signatures in support this spring, plans to be visible, Muhl said, appearing at board meetings to remind trustees of their cause. They also plan to have a presence in the village’s Fourth of July parade.
Karagianis said he is willing to consider an ordinance.
“I would want impact statements from businesses,” he said. “But I’d be open to it. It’s not an automatic ‘No.'”