I like the work of actor/comedian/writer Louis C.K. I enjoyed watching his series "Louis" that aired on the cable channel FX.
In the autobiographical series, C.K. plays a divorced father of two young girls. In one episode, he's preparing chicken for dinner and his younger daughter confronts him in the kitchen. She wants a mango pop, like her older sister got, but it was the last one.
"That's not fair," she whines.
C.K. tries to turn the situation into a teaching moment.
"You're never going to get the same things as other people," he tells her. "It's not going to happen ever in your life, so you might as well learn that now."
The girl continues to whine about the unfairness of it all, how the older sister got a treat and she did not. C.K. tries again to teach his daughter about the harsh realities of life.
"The only time you look in your neighbor's bowl is to make sure they have enough," he says. "You don't look in your neighbor's bowl to make sure you have as much as them."
Sometimes I think suburban municipalities are like siblings. The much larger and more powerful Chicago and Cook County governments are like domineering parents. Some towns are very keen to appearances of unfairness.
When it comes to the new Cook County minimum wage and sick leave laws that take effect Saturday, I support the nearly 75 home-rule suburban communities that have opted out of the requirements.
Towns have to look out for the interests of business owners and employers within their borders. It makes no sense for a community's elected officials to put their residents at a disadvantage by making it more difficult for businesses to operate in their town.
South suburbs opting out of the requirements, include Alsip, Crestwood, Evergreen Park, Hickory Hills, Oak Forest, Oak Lawn, Orland Park, Palos Heights, Palos Park and Tinley Park.
Park Forest joined the ranks Monday night, when the village board voted to opt out of the minimum wage and sick leave requirements.
"I really empathize with residents of the area who need more revenue … but I'm very concerned about what would happen with our businesses," Trustee Georgia O'Neill said.
Trustee Mae Brandon said since Park Forest straggles two counties, going along with a wage hike in Cook County would give an advantage to shops doing business in the Will County part of town.
"I don't think that's fair," Brandon said. "In all fairness, if it's going to be a wage increase it should be across the state."
I agree. But if the General Assembly is to tackle the minimum wage issue it must consider how the cost of living varies from Chicago to Calumet City to downstate Cairo.
I see no reason why the minimum wage should be the same in Chicago, the suburbs and rural towns.
Park Forest Mayor John Ostenburg Monday night spoke about how he, as a Catholic concerned about social justice, is conflicted by the dilemma.
"I find myself in a very uncomfortable position," said Ostenburg, who abstained from voting when the board decided by margins of 4-2 and 5-1 to opt out of the minimum wage and sick leave requirements. "I'm very troubled the situation has come about the way it has."
The federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour has not changed since 2009. In Illinois, the minimum wage reached $8.25 an hour in 2011 after a series of annual increases. In Chicago, the minimum wage increases to $11 an hour on Saturday and will reach $13 an hour in 2019 as a result of an ordinance approved in 2014.
In Cook County, the minimum wage increases to $10 an hour on Saturday in communities that have not opted out. It's set to increase $1 an hour each of the next three years, topping out at $13 an hour in 2020.
In May, both chambers of the state legislature approved a bill that would raise the minimum wage in Illinois to $15 an hour over the next five years. But Gov. Bruce Rauner has indicated he'll likely veto the measure, calling it "extreme" and "crushing for our small businesses and crushing for job creation."
I agree with Rauner on this one. I think a law that sets the same minimum wage statewide is flawed. I'd like to see Illinois adopt a staggered minimum wage requirement that considers the differences between a big city like Chicago, a large metropolitan area like the suburbs and rural areas.
That's what lawmakers did in Oregon. Last year, the legislature in the "Beaver State" established a series of annual minimum wage rate increases that vary depending on where businesses are located.
"The bill sets out a separate rate which will apply to employers located in the urban growth boundary of a metropolitan service district," according to Oregon's state website. "(Currently, only the Portland metropolitan area has an urban growth boundary.) Finally, a third rate will apply within certain 'nonurban' counties named in the bill."
The "standard" minimum wage in Oregon will reach $13.50 an hour in 2022. In the Portland area, it will be $14.75 but in rural parts of the state it will top out at $12.50.
I'm not saying Illinois should adopt the same rates as Oregon. But I do like the idea of setting different minimum wages for different parts of the state.
Illinois has a great deal of disparity. A fair wage for a worker at a shop on Chicago's Magnificent Mile is not the same amount as it is for a worker at a similar business in Carbondale.
I think Chicago's minimum wage ordinance makes sense. But with more than half of Cook County's 132 municipalities opting out of the county's new requirements, I think businesses in the towns that haven't opted out are going to find themselves at an unfair disadvantage.
That may just be the way life is, as Louis C.K. might say. Get used to it. Still, I'll be sorry if south suburban communities already disadvantaged by inequality in school funding and the state's highest property tax rates suffer even more because it's cheaper to do business in a neighboring town.
I encourage village boards and city councils in communities that have not already done so to opt out of Cook County's minimum wage and sick leave requirements.