Mayor Johnson vetoes plan to freeze subminimum wage for tipped workers

Mayor Brandon Johnson on Wednesday used his third veto to bury an ordinance that would have frozen the hourly pay of Chicago’s tipped workers at 76% of the minimum wage, and he’s likely to make it stick unless there’s a compromise to give struggling restaurants a short break.

Last week, the City Council voted 30-18 to maintain the subminimum wage to throw an economic lifeline to struggling Chicago restaurants, four votes short of the 34 votes needed to override the mayor’s veto.

At a news conference at Let’s Eat Live Restaurant in the Woodlawn neighborhood that had the feel of campaign rally, Johnson said working people will “always have a fighter on the fifth floor in Brandon Johnson,” adding there has “never been a right time ever to roll back the rights and gains of women — particularly women of color,” but it’s "especially tone deaf and disturbing” now in the midst of an affordability crisis.

“Families are struggling under the weight of rising costs, rent, groceries, child care — and wages have not kept up with these rising costs. 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 mayor said.

Illinois Restaurant Association President Sam Toia is targeting nine alderpersons who voted against the freeze despite having heavy concentrations of restaurants in their wards, in hopes of convincing at least four of them to change their votes and override the mayor’s veto.

They include Alds. Julia Ramirez (12th) and Jeylu Gutierrez (14th), whose wards include the Archer Avenue commercial strip, and Ald. Jason Ervin (28th), whose West Side ward includes half of the Taylor Street restaurant district.

Other Council members Toia is lobbying include Daniel La Spata (1st), who represents restaurant-heavy Bucktown and Wicker Park; Lamont Robinson (4th), whose ward includes Hyde Park restaurants and both Andre Vasquez (40th) and Matt Martin (47th), whose North Side wards include Lincoln Square and North Center.

“It’s a heavy lift. I’m very pragmatic. I’ve been around. 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” when the City Council meets again to consider an override, Toia said.

“My pitch to these people is, we know that 496 restaurants closed in the first half of 2025. And if they take another hit on labor costs, this could literally put a lot of our independent family-owned restaurants out of business.”

The Sun-Times contacted several of those alderpersons, and none said they were entertaining the idea of changing their vote to support an override of the mayor’s veto.

Robinson, La Spata and Vasquez said they are open to working with the mayor’s office on a compromise that would give restaurants a one-year break from the phase-out.

An ordinance to do just that has already been introduced by newly appointed Ald. Walter R. Burnett (27th), whose Near West Side ward includes the bustling Fulton Market district. Johnson rejected that one-year freeze.

“We have to figure out how to move this forward to benefit both sides. The workers need wages. But we also have to make sure we’re supportive of small businesses that are the backbone of communities like mine. These folks hire a lot of people, we have to support them,” Robinson said.

Vasquez said he also favored a shorter reprieve for restaurants that are already required to make up the difference for those servers and bartenders whose tips and subminimum wage do not match Chicago’s minimum wage, which now stands at $16.60 an hour and rises every July 1.

“There’s ways to talk [about] maybe an exemption for smaller businesses that are separate from these larger corporations that are doing just fine. Maybe doing a pause with a finite amount of time,” Vasquez said.

La Spata said he supports a one-year freeze over an override because he believes the economic squeeze on Chicago restaurants stem “much more from the economic policies of the Trump administration than they have anything to do with paying their servers a dollar more this year.”

“I also think it’s unfair to essentially scapegoat servers for those economic costs,” La Spata said.

Ramirez said she is leaning toward upholding the mayor’s veto “based off the workers who have organized, the stories I’ve learned from them and the conversations I’ve had with restaurant owners” in her ward.

For his part, Johnson urged Chicagoans to call their alderperson and “let them know that this veto makes sense for the people of Chicago.

"If you believe that women… deserve equal pay for their work that they are doing," Johnson said, "call your alderman and tell them that you agree with that.”