After hours of debate, the City Council voted 12-7 to adopt an
ordinance to establish a minimum wage for Madison early Wednesday
morning. Ald. Austin King, District 8, drafted the ordinance.
The Council voted 5-14 early in the meeting against a substitute
ordinance Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz proposed.
The mayor’s office announced Monday that Cieslewicz had
reached an agreement with 36 local businesses in support of a $7.75
minimum wage for Dane County.
The changes to the ordinance’s original version included
adjusting the time period for which the $7.75 rate would be paid
out to employees, eliminating the distinction between large and
small businesses and raising the wage for tipped employees to $2.55
to account for Madison’s higher cost of living.
An overwhelming number of local business owners, students and
concerned members of the public gathered at the meeting to voice
their positions on the topic.
Victoria Selkowe, staff attorney for the Economic Justice
Institute in Madison, spoke at the City Council meeting to support
the minimum-wage increase as defined by the original ordinance.
“[Those presently receiving minimum wage] are not teens,
as the data overwhelmingly suggests. They are adults supporting
families on a wage that leaves no cushion for accidents,”
Selkowe said. She emphasized that most of her clients are
individuals on the bottom economic rung who are likely to hold
minimum-wage jobs for much of their lives.
Representing the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce, Jennifer
Alexander also expressed support for the wage increase, but only at
a state level.
“Why should we want to make it more expensive to create
jobs in Madison?” Alexander said.
Alexander called the potential decision to raise the
city’s minimum wage “bad public policy” that
would ultimately make the city a “wage island.”
The most vocal opposition to the proposed ordinance came from
area restaurant owners, who spoke adamantly about the harmful
effects of a wage increase.
Like Alexander, Jim Martine, owner of Pedro’s Mexican
Restaurant, worried a local minimum-wage increase could be
dangerous and instead supported a statewide increase.
Kane Drugg, managing director of the Outback Steakhouse on
Madison’s east side, said restaurant businesses already must be
frugal since they generally only earn a 5 to 7 percent profit. For
Drugg, a wage increase would not only mean firing up to 11 of his
workers, but also cutting funds that would otherwise go in the
community donations box.
A total of 21 people registered to speak in favor of the
ordinance, and nine registered to speak against it at
Tuesday’s meeting.
Before diving into debate over the minimum wage, Cieslewicz
addressed the recent disappearance of University of Wisconsin
student Audrey Seiler.
“We send out our concerns and best wishes that she will be
found,” Cieslewicz said before attending to the
meeting’s agenda items.
The City Council also looked at the expansion of St.
Mary’s Hospital and a proposed “glass-free zone”
for the Mifflin Street Block Party.
