Cleveland officials have placed employers doing business in the city on notice.
The city is coming after you if you break laws designed to make sure workers are paid what they are owed. These include a wage theft ordinance that penalizes employers who intentionally shortchange workers’ pay. They also include a pay transparency ordinance, which addresses practices that often make it difficult for a job applicant to negotiate a competitive salary. The ordinance forbids employers from asking job seekers about salary history or advertising for positions without posing salary ranges.
At what was billed as a pre-Labor Day news conference, Mayor Justin Bibb, Council President Blaine Griffin and members of the Fair Employment Wage Board (FEWB) were among those Wednesday touting the message that the city was about to begin stepping up enforcement of such laws.
We still have major issues around income inequality in the city of Cleveland, and we want to make sure that our residents are paid their fair share for a day’s worth of hard work.
Mayor Justin Bibb
Matt Ashton, the owner of Lekko Coffee on Detroit Avenue and chair of the board, said holding a public event – the news conference was on the steps of Cleveland Public Auditorium – about enforcement was important.
“It’s time that people know that these laws are on the books and that they’re going to be responsible for following them,” he said.
Within the past few years, council has either passed or given more teeth to worker-focused laws. The wage theft law bars companies that cheat workers out of pay from holding city contracts. Employers who repeatedly violate the pay transparency law can face stiff fines.
These laws fall under the fair employment board’s purview. The board started meeting last year. Most of the meetings since then focused on organizing the board and determining how it will work with the city departments that will do enforcement. With the strategy now in place, the city is ready to begin enforcement.
Laws aim to create more middle-class Clevelanders
Bibb believes the laws will help improve the economic status of residents in a city where many of them are working class and low-income.
“We still have major issues around income inequality in the city of Cleveland, and we want to make sure that our residents are paid their fair share for a day’s worth of hard work,” he said.
“We want to make sure as a city we’re fighting for workers,” Bibb continued. “In this moment, we have our state legislature and Republicans in D.C. attacking labor, attacking the rights of workers. We as a city government must do our part to check those things.”
Griffin has been advocating for years on many of the issues the laws address. In fact, he was among the sponsors of the legislation that created the board more than two decades ago.
“It lay dormant for about 20 years,” he said. “To see it revived is a proud moment for me.”
He said that, by passing the laws and now being committed to enforcing them, the city is showing its commitment “to do things that help workers.”
Like Bibb, he believes the laws and their enforcement will help many Clevelanders economically.
“We really need to grow the middle class in the city of Cleveland,” Griffin said. “We’re putting these policies in place in order to try to make sure that we lift wages to create a larger middle class population.”