CBS News reports:
The Chicago City Council has passed the so-called Big Box Ordinance, requiring large retailers like Wal-Mart and Target to pay employees at least $10 per hour.
The ordinance passed Wednesday afternoon 35 to 14. In addition to the higher wage, retailers will be required to pay $3 in benefits and must comply by July 1, 2010.
35 is one more than it takes to override a possible mayoral veto! Ya-hoo! Congrads to Ald. Moore and the other 35 Alderman! You've done us proud!
UPDATE: Here's the Sun-Times account:
The 35 to 14 vote by a bitterly divided City Council is a victory for organized labor, a stunning defeat for Wal-Mart and the latest in a string of legislative embarrassments for Mayor Daley.
....
Earlier this week, Daley refused to tip his hand for fear it would let aldermen off the hook.
“First the City Council has to make this decision. It's called, 'Profiles in Courage.' Simple as that,” he said Monday.
....
Wal-Mart and Target underscored the mayor’s claim with threats to abandon their ambitious Chicago expansion plans.
Wal-Mart threatened to cancel plans to build as many as 20 new Chicago Wal-Marts over the next five years. Target put plans to build three South Side stores “on hold” — and made thinly veiled threats to close existing Chicago stores.
But, in the end, none of that sabre-rattling mattered.
Aldermen had made their commitments to organized labor months ago. They were not about to renege -- and test labor’s threat to run candidates against sitting aldermen who dare to oppose the “living wage" -- just seven months before the election.
Chief sponsor Ald. Joe Moore (49th) likened the ordinance to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s efforts 68 years ago to impose a 40-cent-an-hour minimum wage, outlaw child labor and mandate a 40-hour work week. “Our job is not to safeguard the profit for the world’s wealthiest corporations. Our job is to look out for our constituents,’’ he said.
Daley: 'Profiles in Courage.'? Interesting wording. Makes you really wonder where he stands on this. It's hard to believe he'll veto the thing. The same calendar holds for him as for the Alderman : " just seven months before the election"!
Naturally the first thing the Retailers are going to do is run to the Courts and engage in a little 'judicial activism':
The Illinois Retail Merchants Association has vowed a court challenge to block the ordinance from taking effect.
Sour grapes.