A standoff is looming between those in Evanston who want the city to pass a controversial law that would almost double the hourly pay for sub minimum wage workers and restaurant owners who say the law could put them out of business.
The ordinance making its way to City Council seeks to set a minimum wage for all business in Evanston at $15.50 an hour for employers with four to 50 employees and $16.25 per hour for employers with 51 or more employees. That wage hike would include restaurant wait staff and other tipped and sub minimum wage workers. Currently, the minimum hourly wage rate in Illinois for tipped and sub minimum workers such as servers is $7.80.
Other sub minimum wage workers include “individuals whose earning or productive capacities are impaired by a physical or mental disability, including those related to age or injury, for the work to be performed,” according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
A similar minimum wage hike is currently being considered in Chicago after a recent hike in July raised the minimum wage to $15.80 for many employees with the wage for tipped workers reaching anywhere from $9 to $9.48.
“We need to move the minimum wage to where workers are able to receive economic dignity and respect for the work that they do,” Richard Rodriquez with organization One Fair Wage told Evanston’s Health and Human Services Committee.
The proposal is still in committee but some form of it could be brought to the City Council for a vote before the end of the year, officials said.
“It’s not only happening in Evanston,” said Rodriquez. “It’s going to happen across the country.”
He said seven states, including California, have already enacted similar laws.
“Their restaurant industry did not go under,” he said. “They are thriving and growing.”
But what some see as economic justice, others see as a looming hardship on businesses that are still struggling to find workers and make ends meet following several lean years in the wake of COVID-19.
“The proposed elimination of the sub minimum wage, at least in Evanston, is really in our opinion a solution in search of a problem,” David Lipschutz, the owner of Evanston’s Blind Faith restaurant told the committee. “It’s directed at the economics of the Evanston restaurant community.”
He said his wait staff earns in excess of $25 to $40 an hour including tips and that “this is true at my restaurant and many of the restaurants that I’ve spoken to in the community.”
Lipschutz also said the push for an increase in the minimum wage might be the future of the industry but if so, it should be done at a statewide level and not locally where it could put Evanston restaurants at an economic disadvantage.
“There won’t be a level playing field which is not fair if restaurants in Skokie and Wilmette are not on that same playing field,” he explained.
Evanston restaurateur Amy Morton told the committee that restaurants are still struggling in the wake of COVID-19 and that if the proposal passes it could put them out of business.
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“My concern is that the council is focusing on the wrong things at the wrong time right now,” she said. “I really plead with the council, let us wait until this passes statewide if it does.”
“Evanston restaurants will go out of business,” she said. “The guests will go to all the other communities that do not have this because their restaurants will seem that much less expensive. You need our restaurants. Don’t put us out of business.”
Evanston Alderman Devon Reid is an advocate of the proposal and said the city has to pass it to help ensure pay equity for all workers.
“We’re hearing from our restaurant owners how difficult it is to hire new folks,” he said. “It is ordinances like eliminating the sub minimum wage that will draw the best, the smartest, the hardest working workers to Evanston because they know they will get a fair wage. We’re going to lose workers to Chicago if they pass this ordinance and we don’t.”
The Human Services Committee is scheduled to take up the wage issue again at its Oct. 2 meeting and could vote on it. From there, it would go to City Council by the end of the year.
Brian L. Cox is a freelance reporter with Pioneer Press.