Oak Park trustees open door to living-wage ordinance

By Jean Lotus Staff Reporter

 

Local fast food workers from the “Fight for $15” movement gathered at an Oak Park McDonald’s and then spoke at a board meeting at the Village Hall May 2. (Photo by Jean Lotus/Chronicle Media)

Local fast food workers from the “Fight for $15” movement gathered at an Oak Park McDonald’s and then spoke at a board meeting at the Village Hall May 2. (Photo by Jean Lotus/Chronicle Media)

Trustees for the Village of Oak Park requested steps to move forward with a “living wage” ordinance after about 80 protesters from the “Fight for 15” activist group marched May 2 between the Madison Street McDonald’s and another fast-food restaurant and then made their way to Village Hall.

“We have had direction around a living wage ordinance that has languished for a very long time,” said Trustee Collette Lueck. “This is a critical issue for our community. I think the pathways from poverty to the middle class have increasingly been closed. I can’t envision how anybody lives on $8 an hour, and I think we need to move that forward,” she said.

Trustee Adam Salzman also called for an ordinance to be crafted. The board did not vote on the issue.

Employees who identified themselves as working for local fast food restaurants including McDonald’s, KFC, Jimmy John’s, Popeyes and Wendy’s along with supporters from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and religious leaders from Oak Park held a demonstration in the parking lot of the Oak Park McDonald’s, which is located across the street from Village Hall.

Demonstrators from the group had visited the Oak Park McDonald’s a few months earlier, but organizers were acting on the momentum of the recent adoption in New York and Los Angeles to raise minimum wage to $15 per hour.

“By setting a $15 minimum wage, Oak Park can set a precedent for the other suburbs,” said the Rev. C.J. Hawking, executive director of Arise Chicago and a local pastor.

Maria Torres, who identified herself as an eight-year employee of the Oak Park McDonald’s said in Spanish that her salary of $9.25 per hour was not enough to pay the rent and for groceries and medicine.

Dominican University student Christina Dzienkonski shared her childhood memories of being evicted and having nothing in the house to eat.

“Sadly this is the reality for far too many young children today because their families are living on an unlivable wage, the minimum wage,” she said. Dzienkonski shared that her teeth were damaged from childhood malnutrition and her family was still paying dentist bills.

“Children don’t deserve to watch their parents fight over how to pay the rent. Children don’t deserve to have to wonder when the next meal’s going to come,” she said. “I stand here because I don’t want to see some child like me in 20 years sharing painful stories about their childhood.”

In 2009, Oak Parkers approved by 60 percent an advisory referendum for a living wage ordinance. The proposed ordinance mandated that businesses who did work for the village, or who received more than $50,000 in tax benefits from the village would be required to pay employees a “living wage,” which ramped up over a few years, said Benedictine Graduate Economics professor Ron Baiman, who helped craft the proposal over several years.

“We gave them a blueprint a proposed ordinance for a living wage. We came in and presented it. But the board engaged in a parliamentary maneuver and accepted the report but did not approve it,” Baiman remembered.

“They ‘ve been dragging their feet for years and years. It’s really a depressing story because they’re not representing what the people want.”

Baiman said he has researched the effect of wage increases on the business economy.

“If you can’t afford to pay a livable wage, there’s something wrong with the business model,” he said.

Research in Seattle and Santa Fe, which recently raised the minimum wage, showed so far that service businesses such as fast food restaurants don’t close down or move away when they have to pay higher labor costs, Baiman said.

“The fact is, service-sector industries are place-bound and not competing against Chinese competitors,” Baiman said. “The market is where they are established. If everybody is at the same wage floor it doesn’t put anyone at a disadvantage for this kind of business.

“Fast food corporations are extremely profitable, and that profit is coming directly out of low-wage workers who rely on public subsidies.”

But Oak Park Mayor Anan Abu-Taleb, a restaurant owner and entrepreneur has not been enthused about raising costs for any businesses in town.

Abut-Taleb closes every board meeting with the phrase, “Oak Park is open for business.”

Abu-Taleb didn’t return repeated calls, texts and emails for comment.

Baiman said he hoped the village would take the lead among Chicago suburbs to raise the minimum wage, as Chicago has agreed to do, over several years.

“Our town prides itself on progressive values, and we should not be a laggard but a leader to create a more fair and just economic system,” Baiman said.

 

 

Read the current issue of the Cook County Chronicle

Free digital subscription to the Cook County Chronicle

 

— Oak Park trustees open door to living-wage ordinance —