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Daley Vetoes Chicago Living Wage |
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Chicago Mayor Richard Daley (D) today issued the first veto in his 17 years on the job to reject a living wage ordinance aimed at forcing big-box retailers like Wal-Mart and Home Depot to pay their employees a living wage and provide health care.
The new living wage law applies to retailers with stores larger than 90,000 square feet that are part of companies with at least $1 billion in sales annually. Under the bill, minimum hourly wages in those stores would jump to $9.25 in 2007 and to $10 in 2010 and will be indexed to inflation in the years after. Firms also must pay $1.50 an hour in benefits—such as health care—starting in 2007 and $3 an hour in 2010.
The City Council passed the ordinance 34–15 on July 26. Daley needs to convince two aldermen to change their votes in order to sustain his veto. The council is expected to meet Sept. 13.
The Chicago Federation of Labor and Industrial Union Council says “despite a million-dollar media blitz and vocal opposition from Mayor Daley,” an overwhelming majority of likely voters in Chicago support a living wage law for large retailers, according to a citywide poll released at a rally at City Hall on Wednesday, Aug. 30.
According to the poll, 71 percent of Chicagoans favor the big-box living wage ordinance, which would require stores like Home Depot, Target and Wal-Mart to pay a living wage.
When the ordinance passed, Chicago Federation of Labor President Dennis Gannon said:
Passage of this ordinance is a victory for all the communities and working men and women in Chicago who deserve to earn a living wage and benefits in exchange for their hard work. It sets a national standard for making sure individuals earn a living wage with benefits in exchange for day’s work.
At the heart of this ordinance is equality and fairness. Today’s vote sends a message that our elected officials and community members alike are not interested in the creation of low paying jobs that fail to provide a living wage or adequate health care benefits for working families. The choice between no job and a low-paying job is a choice between bad and worse.
Chicago working families flooded City Council offices with tens of thousands of e-mails, letters and phone calls in support of the ordinance. They packed council chambers during hearings and the day of the vote, Gannon says.
Living wage laws, which seek to ensure workers are paid a sufficient wage to support themselves and their families, have been passed in more than 140 municipalities. Most require contractors who receive city or county contracts to pay a living wage.
To ensure working people have health care coverage, the AFL-CIO is campaigning for Fair Share Health Care legislation in 31 states to require large employers to spend a percentage of their payroll costs for workers’ health coverage or pay into a state health care fund.
In July, a federal judge struck down Maryland’s Fair Share Health Care law, which requires large employers such as Wal-Mart to spend at least 8 percent of their payroll on employee health care or pay into a state fund. The law was designed to encourage health coverage for workers at large, profitable companies and to prevent rich firms from sticking taxpayers with the health care costs of employees who are forced to turn to publicly financed health care such as Medicaid.
Meanwhile, the AFL-CIO’s America Needs a Raise campaign to boost the federal minimum wage from the 10-year-old $5.15 an hour level to $7.25 an hour and to raise states’ wage floors continues to gain support, particularly at the state and local levels.
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