County too hasty on minimum-wage hike
As president of the Technology and Manufacturing Association, I have been impressed by Cook County Chair Toni Preckwinkle's efforts to improve county government.
That said, Cook County ought to stay out of public policy it doesn't understand. The recent passage of Cook County ordinances mandating a 58 percent increase to the minimum wage and a minimum employee paid time off are steps that should have been avoided. Cook County has no experience, or special expertise on either wages or employee leave policy. And they made no attempt to gain any before imposing new regulations on thousands of Illinois businesses that call Cook County home. Without a single hearing or study Cook County voted to insert themselves into the employer/employee relationship, a relationship already subject to the oversight of no less than 10 federal and state agencies.
Cook County employers pay some of the highest property taxes and are subject to the highest sales tax in America. These men and women work hard to provide rewarding, meaningful employment to hundreds of thousands of Cook County residents. The last thing they need is another set of bureaucrats enforcing an additional set of costly regulations.
In slowly-recovering Cook County, jobs are the priority. Creating a Cook County-only minimum wage and mandating a poorly-conceived, one-size-fits-all employee sick leave law is not the way to encourage employers to expand or locate in Cook County.
Like Chair Preckwinkle, I am committed to increasing economic growth, stability, and prosperity in all of Cook County (and Illinois), fairly and equitably. The path to this growth is not a county-by-county set of differing regulations, however well intended.
Sustainable economic development starts with predictable public policy, a workforce prepared for today's jobs, a functioning transportation infrastructure, a fair and understandable tax burden and an employer willing to hire.
Steve Rauschenberger, President
Technology & Manufacturing Association
Schaumburg