The Respon­si­ble Busi­ness Act would charge cor­po­ra­tions who employ more than 750 Cook Coun­ty work­ers at less than $15 per hour fees for pay­ing what advo­cates call pover­ty-lev­el wages. Since it was intro­duced in Octo­ber last year, the act has gained the sup­port of unions and grass­roots orga­ni­za­tions fight­ing for eco­nom­ic justice.

Two actions in sup­port of the pro­posed Respon­si­ble Busi­ness Act (RBA) took place in Cook Coun­ty on Mon­day. In Chicago’s Uptown neigh­bor­hood, Orga­niz­ing Neigh­bor­hoods for Equal­i­ty: North­side, or ONE North­side, led a teach-in at their offices and can­vassed out­side of cor­po­rate stores. Sup­port­ers of the RBA includ­ing IIRON and the Reclaim Cam­paign held an action at a Wal­mart store in sub­ur­ban Bed­ford Park, just out­side the city limits.

The RBA is a coun­ty-lev­el act and is spon­sored by Com­mis­sion­er Robert Steele of the Cook Coun­ty Board of Com­mis­sion­ers. It cur­rent­ly has three co-spon­sors: Joan Patri­cia Mur­phy, Luis Arroyo, Jr. and Jer­ry But­ler; orga­niz­ers say they also have two com­mit­ments to vote ​“yes” from Jesus ​“Chuy” Gar­cia and Lar­ry Suf­fredin. Three more com­mis­sion­ers need to sup­port the act in order for it to pass through the 17-mem­ber board. Mon­day’s actions called on 11th Dis­trict Com­mis­sion­er John Daley and 10th Dis­trict Com­mis­sion­er Brid­get Gain­er to back the bill.

At the can­vass­ing event orga­nized by ONE North­side, sup­port­ers of the RBA called for Gain­er to co-spon­sor the pro­pos­al. They engaged pedes­tri­ans out­side of Tar­get, Star­bucks and McDonald’s — all cor­po­ra­tions that would poten­tial­ly be affect­ed by the RBA.

“The CEOs of these big cor­po­ra­tions con­tin­ue to make mas­sive prof­its while the work­ers, who are respon­si­ble for the func­tion­ing of the cor­po­ra­tions, are forced to rely on pub­lic ser­vices to sur­vive off their pover­ty wages,” said Eugene Lim, a mem­ber of the group’s Work­ers’ Rights Team.

Com­mis­sion­er Gain­er did not respond to a request for comment.

The Respon­si­ble Busi­ness Act would give cor­po­ra­tions with over 750 employ­ees a choice: either raise their employ­ees’ wages to a liv­ing wage — deter­mined by Cook Coun­ty Chief Finan­cial Offi­cer Ivan Sam­stein at $14.57 per hour with­out ben­e­fits and $11.66 per hour with ben­e­fits — or pay a $750 fee for each dol­lar paid below the hourly liv­ing wage per employee.

For exam­ple, a cor­po­ra­tion where 100 work­ers earn $13.57 per hour (one dol­lar below the liv­ing wage of $14.57 per hour) would have the choice of rais­ing their hourly wage by $1 for each work­er, or pay­ing a fee of $75,000 ($1 times 100 work­ers, times the $750 fine). This fee is designed to sup­ple­ment the hous­ing and child­care assis­tance, Med­ic­aid costs and oth­er ser­vices out of reach for work­ers earn­ing pover­ty wages. The fees would be ear­marked specif­i­cal­ly for pub­lic assis­tance pro­grams and dis­trib­uted by the county.

Sev­en­ty-five per­cent of the rev­enue would be placed into a new­ly estab­lished Fam­i­ly Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Fund, 20 per­cent would go to pre-exist­ing health care spend­ing and the remain­der would be spent on admin­is­tra­tive costs. A nine-per­son com­mis­sion would advise the Cook Coun­ty Board of Com­mis­sion­ers on allo­ca­tion of the col­lect­ed funds.

Mon­day morn­ing’s South Side action took place at the Wal­mart store at 7050 S. Cicero Avenue. About 50 peo­ple, includ­ing low-wage work­ers, stu­dents and mem­bers of IIRON, Reclaim Cam­paign, the Bridge­port Alliance and Nation­al Nurs­es Unit­ed were present. At 11 A.M., the pro­test­ers entered Wal­mart, car­ry­ing signs and chant­i­ng ​“Hey you, mil­lion­aires, pay your fair share!”

Gian­na Cha­con is an under­grad­u­ate at Roo­sevelt Uni­ver­si­ty. She says her $10 per hour retail job at Mar­shalls isn’t enough to cov­er her liv­ing expens­es. ​“These com­pa­nies can afford to pay us enough to live on, but instead they choose to squeeze their work­ers and make a few mil­lion more,” she told the crowd.



The group brought with them a 3′ x 5′ invoice for what they say is the $33 mil­lion owed by Wal­mart to work­ers and tax­pay­ers. The num­ber is an esti­mate of the amount of tax­pay­er mon­ey that goes to sup­port­ing Wal­mart employ­ees to pro­vide essen­tial ser­vices that they are unable to afford. Accord­ing to a study by the Cen­ter for Urban Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois at Chica­go (UIC), the Respon­si­ble Busi­ness Act would affect 67 employ­ers in Cook Coun­ty and raise the wages of over 16,000 work­ers. The aver­age increase would be $7.11 per hour, per worker.

Yama­ra Ayala, a moth­er of two and a home care aide for her father, said at Monday’s action that she has high hopes for the Respon­si­ble Busi­ness Act. ​“I’m hop­ing it does go for­ward because it will help so many fam­i­lies. … None of us are get­ting our fair share, and that’s what we’re fight­ing for.”

Mon­day’s South Side action was one of the first to tar­get 11th Dis­trict Com­mis­sion­er John Daley, who has yet to pledge sup­port for the Respon­si­ble Busi­ness Act. Tom Gaulke, a leader with IIRON and the Bridge­port Alliance, addressed Daley dur­ing Mon­day’s action: ​“You have the pow­er to help us make large cor­po­ra­tions like Wal­mart pay their fair share to work­ers and pay their fair share to our communities.”

Com­mis­sion­er Daley did not respond to a request for comment.

If imple­ment­ed, the act would incre­men­tal­ly raise the min­i­mum wage that large employ­ers are required to pay employ­ees to avoid fees. The rate would increase by $1.35 per year, from the cur­rent min­i­mum of $8.25 in Cook Coun­ty, to a high of $15.00 over five years. The UIC study found that the Act could raise up to $500 mil­lion dur­ing the four year phase-in, and $200 mil­lion after it is ful­ly implemented.

Emil­iano Vera, a North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty under­grad­u­ate and a low-wage work­er him­self, said at Monday’s action that ​“We need to speak up to chal­lenge that bla­tant lie [that low wage work is jus­ti­fied], and tell the sto­ry that the real cul­prits are the cor­po­ra­tions that refuse to pay a liv­ing wage.”