Chicago passed a minimum wage increase at the end of 2014—so how’s it doing? A recent report finds that once again, the news is overwhelmingly good as dire warnings of lost jobs have fizzled in the face of reality. But the report, from the University of Illinois School of Labor and Employment Relations, also highlights a major loophole that needs to be closed. The good news:
- Unemployment hasn’t grown, but wages have, by 2.5 percent. Hours worked dropped by just one percent.
- More than 330,000 workers got a raise.
- Incomes rose more for the lowest-income workers than for the median workers, so low-wage workers are catching up a little.
Here’s the problem, though: Chicago’s minimum wage law allows businesses to hire teens under 18 years old at 50 cents below the state minimum wage, which means that while Chicago’s minimum wage has just gone up to $12 an hour (it was $10 and $10.50 for the time period covered by this report), teens can be paid just $7.75 an hour. That’s a huge gap, and Chicago should take action to close it. Workers under 18 could be paid $2 an hour less than the Chicago minimum wage and still be getting a big raise.
● We make this city: A nationwide campaign to take back cities from the corporations that rule them.
● Rebuilding power in open-shop America: A Labor Notes guide:
A union’s power rests on how many workers will act together and how strong an action they will take.
Even dues-payers represent only potential power. The more important numbers are how many workers have caught the spirit of solidarity, how many will stand together on the job, how many are training their co-workers to see through the boss’s agenda, how many will go to the mat for the union because it’s their organization.
It becomes their organization when “the union” doesn’t mean “those people down at the hall” but “you and me acting together every day on the job to defend our rights.” It’s people collectively keeping supervisors in line, enforcing their right to take breaks, finding ways around over-monitoring, making sure the new hires are welcomed and schooled.
Click through for pieces on the racist history of right-to-work and the anti-union game plan, among others.
● Florida teachers union sues state over union-busting education law.
● For those of you who live in Burgerville territory:
● For 60 years, this powerful conservative group has worked to crush labor.