Executive Order will boost Chicago landscaper jobs

Posted on September 3, 2014

An executive order signed by the mayor that will require city contractors to pay a minimum wage of $13/hr will affect hundreds and hundreds of Chicago landscaper jobs.

Contractors must pay employees a minimum wage of $13 per hour for contracts advertised after October 1, 2014. The hourly wage will be indexed to inflation and increase proportionally on a yearly basis thereafter.

Approximately 1,000 contracted employees will benefit from this Executive Order. These workers are typically employed as landscapers, maintenance workers, security officers, concessionaires, and in custodial services.

“This executive order represents a critical first step towards implementing the Minimum Wage Working Group’s recommendation,” said John Bouman, President, Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law and Co-Chair of the Minimum Wage Working Group, “It provides important movement toward resounding voter approval of the ballot measure in November for an adequate minimum wage for working people throughout the state and then for approval of the $13 minimum wage for all workers in Chicago. A strong minimum wage makes work a path out of poverty and stimulates the economy here and throughout the state.”

The City can lead by example by ensuring that our contractors are paying a higher minimum wage to employees that work on City projects,” said Alderman Will Burns (4th Ward), Co-Chair of the Minimum Wage Working Group, “This order represents another step towards our goal of a $13 minimum wage for Chicago workers, which will boost the incomes for 400,000 workers and lift 80,000 residents out of poverty.”

“A higher minimum wage is essential to putting a financial floor beneath our hard-working families,” Mayor Emanuel said. “With this Executive action, we’ll help ensure that nobody who is contracted to do work with the City of Chicago will ever have to raise their children in poverty.”