Mayor Johnson Vetoes Chicago Tipped Worker Wage Freeze

Mayor Brandon Johnson dropped his third veto Wednesday on an ordinance that would have locked Chicago’s tipped workers at 76% of the minimum wage, and the vote math in the City Council makes it very hard to undo.

The council passed the subminimum wage freeze 30-18 last week, four votes short of the 34 needed to override. Johnson held his news conference at Let’s Eat Live Restaurant in the Woodlawn neighborhood, where he framed the fight in blunt terms. Working people will “always have a fighter on the fifth floor in Brandon Johnson,” he said, adding that there has “never been a right time ever to roll back the rights and gains of women, particularly women of color,” calling the freeze measure “especially tone deaf and disturbing” during an affordability crisis.

The mayor tied the wage question directly to what families face right now. “Wages have not kept up with these rising costs,” he said. “At a time when people are fighting just to stay afloat, you had individuals who claim to stand up for working people, as Democrats take money out of the pockets of working people.”

The other side of this fight is pressing hard. Illinois Restaurant Association President Sam Toia has identified nine alderpersons who voted against the freeze despite representing wards dense with restaurants. His target is simple: flip four of them before the City Council reconvenes April 15 to consider the override.

Toia’s list covers the city geographically and politically. Ald. Julia Ramirez of the 12th Ward and Ald. Jeylu Gutierrez of the 14th Ward both represent stretches of the Archer Avenue commercial corridor. Ald. Jason Ervin’s 28th Ward on the West Side includes half of the Taylor Street restaurant district. On the North Side, Ald. Daniel La Spata represents Bucktown and Wicker Park in the 1st Ward, while Ald. Andre Vasquez in the 40th and Ald. Matt Martin in the 47th cover Lincoln Square and North Center. Ald. Lamont Robinson’s 4th Ward includes Hyde Park’s dining scene.

Toia is not pretending this is easy. “It’s a heavy lift. I’m very pragmatic. I’ve been around,” he said. “But all I can do is keep working, keep pushing. We’ve got a full-court press. I’m gonna fight up until the last minute. I have between now and April 15th.”

His core argument to wavering alderpersons is survival math. The association counted 496 restaurant closings in the first half of last year. Another round of labor cost increases, Toia argues, could push independent family-owned restaurants past the breaking point. None of the targeted alderpersons responded to requests for comment.

The context here matters. Chicago has been phasing out the subminimum wage for tipped workers over several years, a process pushed by labor groups who argue the two-tier pay structure depresses wages and falls hardest on women and workers of color who make up the majority of the tipped workforce. The restaurant industry has consistently fought the phase-out, pointing to thin margins, rising food costs and what it describes as a post-pandemic operating environment that never fully stabilized.

Both arguments carry real weight on a city that has shed restaurants at a troubling rate while also watching a service workforce struggle to afford the neighborhoods where they work. The freeze ordinance tried to split the difference by pausing the phase-out rather than repealing it. Johnson’s veto says that pause is still too much to ask of workers carrying their own affordability burdens.

Whether Toia can move four votes in three weeks is the only question that matters now. The alderpersons he is targeting represent some of the city’s most restaurant-saturated neighborhoods, which gives the industry argument local urgency. But Johnson held this veto news conference in Woodlawn, a South Side neighborhood still working to rebuild its commercial strips, and the symbolism was not accidental. The mayor wants this fight on his terms, framed around workers, not menus.

The April 15 council meeting will settle it. Until then, both sides are counting.