By Kim Phillips
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But on Thursday, May 9, Fourth Ward alderman Toni Preckwinkle intended to introduce the Chicago Jobs and Living Wage Ordinance in the City Council. Its mandate is simple: any business in Chicago receiving assistance from the city worth more than $50,000, or a contract from the city for more than $5,000, must pay its workers at least $7.57 an hour–a wage that will provide a family of four with an annual income meeting the federal poverty line of $15,100. Over the past year, there have been campaigns for similar legislation in cities across the country. A law passed in Baltimore last summer established a minimum wage of $6.10 an hour for all businesses with public contracts, and that minimum will increase over the next four years to $7.27. Last fall saw a bitter contest in Saint Paul, where business organizations called a living-wage initiative “Stalinesque,” outspent community organizers ten to one, and ultimately sent the initiative to defeat at the polls. In Chicago the campaign for the living-wage ordinance has been, in one sense, a classic grass-roots organizing campaign.
“We’ve been going door-to-door, standing on busy intersections, making phone calls,” says Ted Thomas, president of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). But the big reason that the ordinance stands a decent chance of passing in Chicago is that ACORN’s been able to harness widespread support from organized labor. The ordinance has been endorsed by the Teamsters, Service Employees International, United Steelworkers, United Auto Workers, United Electrical Workers, United Commercial and Food Workers, and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees; at a raucous April 25 demonstration in the Loop, the unions were out in full force. As a result, the ordinance has met with considerable support from aldermen. According to ACORN organizers, 36 out of 50 say they’ll vote to pass it. The mayor’s been coy–his press office said he wasn’t quite sure what he thinks about the ordinance, but he hasn’t returned calls from Thomas.
