Just four months after the Chicago City Council eliminated the subminimum wage for restaurant servers, bartenders and other tipped workers, progressive state lawmakers are pushing to do the same statewide.
The City Council in October approved an ordinance that increased wages for tipped workers by 8% beginning July 1. The wage would continue to rise 8% each year until reaching the city’s full minimum wage in 2028.
The proposal being pushed in Springfield would phase out the subminimum wage for tipped workers over a two-year period.
Advocates from the organization One Fair Wage stood outside the Illinois State Capitol on Tuesday to push for the measure, which has not yet been filed. Proponents of the measure include state Rep. Lisa Hernandez, D-Cicero, and Sen. Robert Peters, D-Chicago. Sen. Lakesia Collins, D-Chicago, plans to sponsor the measure in the Senate.
The proposal would require that service charges such as tips go to employees, not employers. It would also require that tips bring workers to the full minimum wage on a per shift basis, instead of weekly or biweekly.
Employers who violated the provisions would be fined up to $1,500 per day for each violation.
The governor’s office would not publicly say whether Gov. J.B. Pritzker supports the plan. But in 2019, Pritzker signed into law a hike to the state’s minimum wage — increasing it to $15 by 2025.
The current minimum wage in Illinois is $14 an hour, and the minimum wage for tipped workers is $8.40 per hour. In Chicago, the minimum wage is $15.80 per hour for employers with 21 or more workers and $15 per hour for employers with four to 20 workers. Tipped workers have a minimum wage of $9 for employers with four to 20 workers and $9.48 for employers with 21 or more workers.
If a tipped worker’s wages plus tips do not equal at least the full minimum wage, the employer must pay the difference, according to existing provisions.
The enforcement language in the proposal is in response to complaints from workers that their employers aren’t filling in those gaps.
Pritzker had campaigned on a minimum wage bump increase, and Democrats in the Illinois House and Senate moved quickly to pass the bill — despite massive opposition from most business groups and Republican lawmakers.
The Illinois Restaurant Association supported Pritzker’s 2019 measure and helped to negotiate a compromise five-year phase-in for the city ordinance, but the group is staunchly opposed to the newest tipped worker state proposal, arguing it would hurt “smaller, family-run and minority-owned businesses the most.”
“The notion that tipped employees make less than minimum wage is simply not true. In fact, the median wage for full-service tipped restaurant workers is over $28 per hour,” the group said in a statement. “These changes will lead to job cuts, an increase in labor costs, and ultimately force restaurant owners to make difficult decisions that will negatively impact their workers and result in higher prices for customers. We are opposed to this legislation.”
The Illinois Retail Merchants Association said it was also opposing the measure.
“We are opposed to cutting worker pay and increasing consumer costs,” Rob Karr, president and CEO of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association said.
According to One Fair Wage, seven states have enacted similar legislation and the group is organizing in nine other states and municipalities. The group says the median wage of tipped workers in Illinois is $27,210 a year.
