Empty threats will do nothing to reform PERS.

Byline: GUEST VIEWPOINT By Jack Roberts For The Register-Guard

As one of the `career politicians' Ron Saxton complained is picking on his Public Employees Retirement System proposal (guest viewpoint, June 9), I would like to set the record straight.

Saxton wrote in BrainstormNW magazine that the answer to the PERS problem - a problem for cities, counties and school districts, not just the state - `is to end the existing public employment contracts by terminating the employees ... and later rehiring them under new contracts with different terms.'

What I pointed out, along with former senate presidents Brady Adams and Gene Derfler, was that this was illegal, would not be effective, and was generally dumb.

Saxton admitted as much, but then said the state should nonetheless use this as a threat to get the unions to the bargaining table. This prompted The Register-Guard in an editorial to ask the perfectly reasonable question of `how an admittedly empty threat would result in contract concessions,' to which Saxton has offered no answer.

He has, however, been busy trying to re-characterize his original proposal. On the Lars Larson radio show, he said what he really meant was that the state could just pick on a particular agency or two and threaten to fire all its employees, presumably as an example to other PERS employees. In The Oregonian, he said his idea actually was to threaten to privatize certain government functions.

Then, in his Register-Guard column, he said his plan would work `by either terminating the existing PERS system and starting over, or by terminating the contracts of Oregon's public employees should their unions refuse to negotiate a new contract.'

Saxton, a lawyer, seems determined to keep throwing interpretations up against the wall hoping that one will stick. Unfortunately for him, they are all fatally flawed. Clearly, he has not penciled out the cost of terminating PERS now and fully funding its multibillion-dollar actuarial deficit today. He also has not thought through the implications of privatizing education and public safety; those employees make up more than two-thirds of the PERS participants.

More significantly, Saxton has the mistaken idea that the terms of PERS are part of the union contract. They are not. PERS is a statutory retirement system, set up by the Legislature. Thousands of public employees - including university professors and virtually all levels of management throughout the public sector - participate in PERS without belonging to a union. The idea that the system can be reformed by the unions in collective bargaining is simply wrong. The idea that you can reform it contract by contract with each government agency is absurd.

Saxton's idea that his threats constitute `playing hardball' with the unions is also ridiculous. The public employee unions have a 3-0 record in lawsuits challenging PERS reforms they believe go too far. Does Saxton really think they would be afraid to challenge his harebrained schemes?

This isn't hardball; this is whiffle ball. Saxton's thoughtless blustering smacks more of wishbone than of backbone. What Oregon needs today is a governor who can bring people together with thoughtful and realistic proposals, not divide Oregonians in a political game of chicken. We need Tom McCall or Vic Atiyeh, not Lars Larson with a law degree.

The most shameful of Saxton's misrepresentations is that nothing has been done and that he is the only one willing to tackle PERS. In 2003, Gov. Ted Kulongoski and the Legislature enacted significant reforms. Some, like the creation of a less expensive retirement system for new employees, were supported by public employee unions after years of opposition. Sen. Tony Corcoran, D-Cottage Grove, saw his political career ended (at least temporarily) because of his courageous leadership on PERS reform.

Saxton dismisses these efforts by falsely claiming all the reforms were struck down by the Oregon Supreme Court. They were not. Most of them, including the adjustment in actuarial tables that Saxton himself campaigned for in 2002, were upheld. The relatively few provisions that were stuck down affected vested interests of long-term employees, which the court has consistently said are constitutionally protected.

Some of the state unions that Saxton blasts for challenging the PERS reforms nonetheless agreed to contracts that same year waiving both cost-of-living adjustments and preapproved step increases in recognition of the state's dire fiscal condition. We should not assume that threats - empty or otherwise - are necessary to force those unions to help make the PERS system more secure and affordable. But it will take leadership, not brinksmanship, to get it done.

Former Labor Commissioner Jack Roberts of Eugene opposed Saxton for the 2002 Republican gubernatorial nomination.