CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — A small crowd of Chicago City Council members, workers and restaurant owners gathered in Humboldt Park to celebrate the first day that so-called subminimum wage workers will get a raise under the city’s One Fair Wage Ordinance on Monday.
The group gathered at Bianca's Burgers on West Division Street near North Maplewood Avenue, to herald the eventual phase-out of the subminimum wage pay scale for tipped workers. Ald. Jessie Fuentes (26th) said their base pay went from about $9.50 per hour to about $11 per hour on Monday.
“There are restaurants across the city of Chicago who are already paying their hospitality workers a minimum wage, like Elizabeth and Rafael here at Bianca’s Burgers — paying them a minimum wage with tips on top,” Fuentes said.
The Chicago City Council passed the One Fair Wage Ordinance in October 2023. Under the measure, the minimum wage for tipped workers will rise by 8% each year for five years.
Rafael Royal said Monday that the measure is about showing workers that you value them and wouldn't be in business without them.
“You need a workforce; you need a base,” Royal said. “If you don’t respect your base enough to make sure that they can live a life worth living, then maybe you’re in the wrong business.”
Elizabeth Royal said she was once a tipped worker.
“When I started, it was 1997, and the minimum wage was $5 per hour,” Elizabeth Royal said. “If you don’t have any tables, what happens? How do you pay your bills?”
Under Illinois law, when tipped workers don’t earn enough in tips, their employer is required to make up the difference in order to bring an employee’s total pay up to the minimum wage.
Prior to the bill’s passage in city council, Illinois Restaurant Association President Sam Toia argued that the city should keep the subminimum wage while quadrupling the penalty for businesses that fail to make up the difference for workers who don’t make the minimum wage after tips. He warned that the increase in labor costs could strangle many mom-and-pop eateries.
Ald. Carlos-Ramirez-Rosa (35th), one of the bill’s sponsors, said Monday that figures show 60% of Chicago restaurants already pay tipped employees more than the minimum wage.
“That means that the vast majority of the restaurant industry has already adopted One Fair Wage here in the city of Chicago, but for that 40% that has not yet gotten there, they’re going to have the next four years to get there,” he said.
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