Cleveland council rejects $15 minimum wage, backers won't back down

Rallies set today on minimum wage Advocates put focus on the fact that it's a year before presidential election

Cleveland City Council on Wednesday voted to reject a proposal to set the city's minimum wage at $15 an hour. But backers of the initiative say they're not done fighting yet.

(Thomas Ondrey, Plain Dealer file)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - After months of contentious debate and public hearings, Cleveland City Council officially has rejected a proposal to set the city's minimum wage at $15 an hour.

But the "Fight for $15" movement still has a lot of fight left in it, as organizers now turn their attention toward their remaining options for getting the issue on the November ballot.

Council members on Wednesday night voted down the proposal, with only Councilman Jeffrey Johnson supporting it.

Councilman Zack Reed received thunderous applause from the initiative's backers for his comments on the floor, seemingly in favor of the $15 minimum wage. But he ended up voting with the majority of his colleagues, who believe a minimum wage hike in Cleveland alone, while the rest of the state remains at $8.10, will kill jobs and spur an exodus of business from the city.

After the vote, dozens of representatives from Raise Up Cleveland, an organization backed by the Service Employees International Union, filed out of council chambers, chanting, "See you in November!" -- alluding to the possible next stop for the piece.

Under the City Charter, petitioners now have the option of putting the original language on a future ballot for Cleveland voters.

The group also could opt to include any of the amendments that were introduced during council's weeks of deliberating over the issue. Among them is a proposal Johnson submitted Wednesday that would phase in the $15 wage over three years, beginning with $12 an hour in the January after the measure passes.

Another alternative Johnson offered would reach $15 more slowly for people employed at grocery stores. Johnson said the proposal would mitigate the adverse impact on grocers, who have testified that a $15 minimum wage would force them to close their doors - a prospect that could create food deserts in low-income neighborhoods.

Whether either of those amendments passes muster for Raise Up Cleveland is unclear. The group says it will announce its next steps Thursday morning at a news conference outside council offices.

It's also undetermined whether the issue will make it onto the general election ballot.

Raise Up Cleveland has 10 days to finalize the ballot language and return it to City Council.

Then, council must certify the issue to the board of elections. The charter-prescribed deadline to make the November ballot is Sept. 9 -- 60 days before the election. However, council isn't scheduled to meet again until Sept. 12.

The City Charter might offer another remedy for the petitioners: Collecting an additional 5,000 signatures, as the petitioners say they have done, could force a special election.

At a council hearing July 13, members of Raise Up Cleveland - anticipating that council eventually would reject the initiative - delivered to Council Clerk Pat Britt's office several boxes containing thousands of additional signatures in support of putting the issue on the November ballot.

Britt rejected them, however, contending that she could not accept the signatures before council made its final decision on the matter.

Late last month, members of Raise Up Cleveland filed a lawsuit against City Council with the Ohio Supreme Court, accusing Britt of unlawfully refusing to accept the signatures. The case is pending.

In the meantime, Raise Up Cleveland seems to have found a powerful ally -- the AFL-CIO.

During city council's Committee of the Whole meeting before the vote Wednesday -- in what can only be described as a mic-drop moment for backers of the initiative -- Harriet Applegate, executive secretary of the Cleveland AFL-CIO, delivered a rousing speech in support of them.

She encouraged council members to put the needs of impoverished residents ahead of those of business owners. She said city leaders should take this rare opportunity to fight poverty directly and serve as an example for the nation, rather than vilify those involved in the movement.

Applegate said many of the business owners who have testified before council this summer, denouncing the initiative, are good corporate citizens and "good friends of labor." But their interests should not override those of the voiceless and powerless workers living in poverty, she said.

The uprising of Cleveland's working poor won't ruin Cleveland, Applegate said. What's ruining Cleveland are "corporations that don't pay their fair share of taxes or when hospitals, making millions, hide behind their nonprofit status, or when companies move their corporate headquarters overseas to avoid taxes."

Applegate said that if the minimum wage issue goes to the ballot, the AFL-CIO - which represents workers in 88 unions - will launch a campaign in support of it.

"You need to ask yourself whose interests you're serving," she told council members. "The fact that Cleveland is the poorest city in America answers that question. ... The proverbial pigs at the troughs got too greedy. Now the rest of us are the proverbial mad-as-hell, and we're not going to deal with it anymore."

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