It took more than two decades to hold its first meeting, but now the Cleveland Fair Employment Wage Board is a functioning body.
The board, charged with such duties as ensuring that employers with city contracts pay Cleveland’s Fair Employment wage, began meeting this summer. Cleveland requires that city employees or those working for companies with city contracts be paid a minimum fair wage. Currently, it is set at $15.85 an hour or $32,968 annually for salaried workers. The fair wage board was formed in 2001, but the city has no record of it having met before 2024, according to Mayor Justin Bibb’s office. The seven-member board was chosen this year.
Camilo Villa, a board member who is Northern Ohio coordinator for SEIU Local 1, said the board is getting its bearings because it has to build everything from scratch. A chair and other officers haven’t been elected yet.
“I think things are going to move a little slowly as we establish exactly how our role operates because we don’t have a model of function to follow,” he said. “But once we get into the meat and potatoes of what the board will do, I think that we’ll be able to do it well because of what [structure] we’ve built.”
The board’s duties include overseeing Cleveland’s wage theft law, which bars the city from doing business with companies found to be shortchanging workers’ pay. The law also prevents the city from doing business with companies that engage in payroll fraud, a form of embezzlement. Such fraud includes companies having fictitious employees on the payroll, in which their “pay” is diverted to the embezzler.
Villa said the board’s role will include identifying employers who aren’t in compliance with the wage theft law and other city laws designed to protect workers.
“Our enforcement ability is yet to be determined, but we are in a position of influence on city contracts and who and who might not get them,” he said.
The mayor appointed six board members and Cleveland City Council appointed one. Council approved the board members. In addition to Villa, the board members are:
- John Hodge, business representative of Plumbers Local 55
- Helen Qin, senior director of new business development at Legacy Capital Partners and co-owner of Mason’s Creamery
- Matt Ashton, owner and founder of Lekko Coffee.
- Bishop Eugene Ward Jr., executive pastor and CEO of Greater Love Baptist Church
- Kate Warren, special assistant to the chief of integrated development for the city.
- Council Member Danny Kelly
