Less than a week after Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle announced a bold economic initiative, civic leaders in Madison are suggesting the city enact parallel legislation to raise the city’s minimum wage.
Doyle’s plan intends to raise the state’s minimum hourly rate of pay, which he believes will directly benefit 134,000 adults who work more than part time.
Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz has expressed concern that Doyle’s plan would largely benefit the city of Milwaukee by targeting it as the state’s urban and economic center, leaving Madison to develop its own economic strategies.
Now District 8 Ald. Austin King, former Ald. Tom Powell, and labor activist and University of Wisconsin student Joe Lindstrom will announce the beginning of what they call the “Madison Fair Wage Campaign,” designed to gather the more than 12,000 signatures to put an increase in minimum wage within Madison’s city limits to a vote on Feb. 17, 2004.
The proposed increase would make the lowest hourly wage for Madison workers $7.75, up from the current state minimum wage of $5.15. The rate for workers who also receive tips would increase from $2.33 per hour to $3.88.
King and Lindstrom admitted they expected heavy opposition for the proposed referendum.
“We expect there will be a lot of opposition from the tavern league and restaurant owners,” Lindstrom said.
King stressed that almost all Madison employers pay their employees above the state’s minimum, at amounts that are already closer to the Fair Wage Campaign’s proposed rate, but he said that such a guideline was necessary to ensure no one who works a steady job would fall under the poverty line.
“Those who don’t pay their workers at our level make up only about 10 percent of Madison businesses,” King said. “That’s an important number to stress because everyone will say this increase will drive away business and hurt small-business owners, when it would actually increase the standard of living for thousands of workers living near poverty level.”
King and Lindstrom said a minimum-wage raise in Madison was long overdue and that such rates have not been properly adjusted over the years to account for inflation and a decrease in value of the dollar.
District 19 Ald. Steve Holtzman said he was cautiously optimistic about the campaign.
“At first hearing about it, I think it sounds like a good idea,” Holtzman said. “A raise to the minimum wage is something that is probably long overdue and it’s nice to see Joe, Tom and Austin take the lead on this.”
Holtzman said citizens of Madison could use the raise, especially with the city’s high cost of living and the recent loss of such large employers as Rayovac and Badgerland Supply.
“We talk a lot about affordable housing, but not a lot about quality of jobs,” Holtzman said. “Hopefully, when you’re working, you’re making more money than you pay out to daycare.”
State Reps. Mark Pocan and Terese Berceau, D-Madison, will be serving as co-chairs of the campaign. Pocan is himself a small-business owner and said the campaign’s idea of raising the minimum wage for the city of Madison was parallel to Doyle’s economic-development package.
“It’s the same thing we’re doing on the state level,” Pocan said. “It would be reasonable for Madison to do this regardless of what the state ultimately does, because of the higher incomes in the city and higher costs of living.”
The campaign’s plan would include a two-year phase in for those businesses with 10 or fewer employees. Those businesses would not have to start paying their employees the new rate until Jan. 1, 2006.
The referendum was drafted as pro-bono work by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University and is expected to be popular with its constituency.
