Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz introduced his own municipal minimum wage proposal at Tuesday’s City Council meeting. The proposal would increase Madison’s minimum wage to $7.75 and $3.88 for tipped employees.
Cieslewicz spokesperson Melanie Conklin said the city attorney’s office is crafting the ordinance to be as legally defensible as possible, since the city is expecting the ordinance to be challenged.
“Chances are that this is going to end up in court,” Conklin said.
If the federal government isn’t going to act to raise the federal minimum wage from $5.15, Madison is prepared to act on the issue alone, according to Conklin.
“The minimum wage hasn’t changed in six years, it doesn’t by anywhere near what it did six years ago,” Conklin said.
She said Gov. Jim Doyle may be working on a proposal to raise the statewide minimum wage to something around $6.80. A rise in salaries across the state would be ideal, Conklin said, because the state has the resources need to enforce the wage. She said figuring out how the city would enforce its own minimum wage is one of the aspects of the proposal that must be decided before a vote is taken.
Several members of the City Council, however, are not in favor of Madison creating its own minimum wage.
District 20 Alder Cindy Thomas said council members have received numerous letters from Madison business owners who say they will not be able to have the same number of employees if they raise their wages and in turn will have difficulty doing business.
“I’m not sure if [campaigners] see the ramifications of what they are going to do. It’s going to make Madison look more and more unfriendly to businesses,” Thomas said.
Thomas said businesses might relocate in surrounding areas such as Fitchburg, Middleton or Cross Plains.
Thomas said she is also concerned the ordinance may help more young people and students, who are more likely earning something close to minimum wage, rather than families living in poverty.
“There’s too many students involved (in the campaign), which may give a skewed idea of the overall population when they are just focusing on downtown,” Thomas said.
Judy Olson, District 6 Alder, is already a proponent of the Madison Fair Wage Campaign and said the city ordinance is more likely to gain enough council support compared to the charter ordinance since it only needs 11 votes to pass.
“The mayor is going to have to develop a group of sponsors to support the ordinance and be present to argue in its favor and to develop the body of information needed to get 11 votes,” Olson said.
Still waiting for the draft of the city ordinance to be completed by the city attorney’s office, Conklin said she expects the ordinance to be nearly identical to the charter ordinance proposed by the Madison Fair Wage Campaign.
Conklin said Cieslewicz and Dist. 8 Alder Austin King introduced the ordinance together to symbolize the two groups working together to raise the city’s minimum wage.
The city ordinance the mayor is proposing would only need 11 votes for approval by the City Council, while the charter ordinance would need a 14-vote supermajority for City Council approval, or it would go before residents in a referendum.
The charter ordinance, which fair wage campaigners are currently collecting signatures for to put on the April 2004 general election ballot, is set in stone and cannnot be changed. Cieslewicz thinks such an ordinance should be put through the process of public hearing and public input to come up with the “strongest, most workable proposal,” Conklin said.
At Tuesday’s meeting, the mayor’s city ordinance was referred to three committees: the Equal Opportunity Commission, Board of Estimates and the Economic Development Commission.
Conklin said Cieslewicz would like to see the City Council vote on the ordinance by April 2004, which is when the charter ordinance would be put before residents if the council hasn’t taken any action.
