At a meeting this month, members of the Evanston City Council will consider whether to require large retail employers to pay 15 weeks of retroactive hazard pay to essential workers as a result of the pandemic.
The proposal passed for introduction May 24 on a 6-3 vote, with council members Peter Braithwaite, 2nd Ward; Melissa Wynne, 3rd Ward; and Cicely Fleming, 9th Ward, voting against the move.
The item is a modified version of what Ald. Devon Reid, 8th Ward, recommended at his first meeting on May 10. Reid proposed a draft ordinance that would require some city businesses to pay essential retail workers an additional $6 per hour in COVID-19 hazard pay.
“We have to do right by these employees and do it now and do it swiftly,” Reid previously said.
Under that proposal, the bump in pay would last until students in Evanston-Skokie School District 65 return to class full time or the city enters Illinois phase five guidelines for reopening. But Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker recently said the state could likely move into phase five on June 11 if current coronavirus metric trends continue. That would mean Illinois would reach phase five before a final vote could be taken on the hazard pay issue, scheduled for June 14.
Under the new proposal, larger retailers and franchises must pay essential workers an additional $6 per hour for work done in the state’s coronavirus response phases 1-3, and an additional $3.50 per hour for work done in phase four. The ordinance would be retroactive 15 weeks from the date it passes, so it would apply even if the state moves into phase five.
Aldermen had questions as to the legality of the retroactive pay requirement, as well as the appearance of requiring companies in town to give hazard pay when the city hasn’t provided similar compensation to its own workers.
“I think it would be very hypocritical to say businesses must pay hazard pay when we have not made that decision of our own staff,” said Ald. Cicely Fleming, 9th Ward.
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But City Attorney Nicholas Cummings said he didn’t find any examples showing why the ordinance would be illegal.
“Although it could be challenged, I did not find anything that said the council could not do that,” Cummings said.