Lightfoot warned to steer clear of more ‘unfunded mandates’ on business

Mayor Lori Lightfoot was warned Friday not to pile more “unfunded mandates” on Chicago businesses by raising the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour or supporting a stalled ordinance that would guarantee employees more predictable work schedules.

The warning came from Aldermen Gilbert Villegas (36^th) and Matt O’Shea (19^th) who, in addition to being on Lightfoot’s leadership team, represent Chicago wards that border the suburbs.

That means they have to be concerned about piling on more “unfunded mandates” that might drive business to the suburbs.

“Right now, we have paid sick leave. We have a minimum wage. These are all unfunded mandates that we’ve put on business. We can’t continue to have unfunded mandates on business and, right across the street, there’s someone there saying, ‘Come over here. Pay less taxes,’” said Villegas, Lightfoot’s choice to chair the City Council’s Economic Development Committee and double as her floor leader.

O’Shea ridiculed the so-called “fair workweek” ordinance that would require Chicago employers to give workers at least two weeks advance notice of their schedules and compensate them for last-minute changes.

“You know what my residents and my businesses call it? The `unfair workweek.’ This is another burden on them while they’re struggling to keep our border businesses,” said O’Shea, who is expected to stay on as Aviation Committee chairman after providing a crucial endorsement and delivering the biggest vote totals in the city for Lightfoot.

“Potbelly just moved from the east side of Western [Avenue] in my ward to the west side of Western in Evergreen Park. 150 feet. Built a building and everything. They had a beautiful brick limestone building on my side and went right across the street.”

Chicago’s minimum wage is $12 an hour, increasing to $13 on July 1.

An ordinance raising it to $15 an hour will be introduced by Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza (10^th). She’s Lightfoot’s choice to lead the Committee on Workforce Development once run by former Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s City Council floor leader, Ald. Pat O’Connor (40th).

Jerry Morrison, assistant to the president of SEIU Local 1, noted this week that Lightfoot campaigned on a $15-an-hour minimum wage and that many of Chicago’s 12 newly elected aldermen did too. So did a lot of incumbents.

“Everyone we’ve spoken to has been supportive thus far. We’ve gotten no opposition yet. Last time the city moved a minimum wage, there were three or four votes against. I don’t have any reason to believe this would be any different,” Morrison said.

Chicago Federation of Labor President Bob Reiter said both the minimum wage and fair workweek ordinances have Lightfoot’s support and the 26 votes needed to win City Council passage.

Reiter noted that changes were made at the behest of business leaders after protracted negotiations during the old Council.

“It’s not an unfunded mandate. It’s about treating people fairly and giving them predictability,” Reiter said.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker has signed a bill that will increase the state’s minimum wage to $10 an hour on July 1, 2020, followed by $1-an-hour increases on January 1 of each year until the hourly wage reaches $15 an hour in 2025.

But Morrison has argued that Chicago’s minimum wage workers can’t afford to wait that long because the city’s cost of living is “considerably higher” than it is in the rest of the state.

“There are no legislative pay increases [in Chicago] after July 1 of this year. If that is allowed to stand, then the state will eventually catch up to the city and city workers will lose 40 percent of their buying power,” he said.

Villegas countered, “There’s a state law that passed. We should take a look at working with that and letting it take its course.”

SEIU Local 1 is among a coalition of unions that owns the Chicago Sun-Times.

Villegas plans to introduce an ordinance Wednesday that would lift caps on gross income and personal net worth that have forced minority and women construction companies out of Chicago’s minority set-aside program.

Companies are now forced to “graduate” from the set-aside program when their average gross receipts exceed $33 million over the previous three fiscal years and when the owner’s personal net worth exceeds $2.4 million.

“Once these firms graduate, they sit out a year or two and then, they’re back in the program because they’re not being utilized,” Villegas said.

“With the caps, it stops firms from either taking work because they don’t want to graduate. Or they graduate out and then, there’s not an incentive for a prime [contractor] to utilize them because they’re not getting any credit.”