On April 10 & 11* our elected State Worker Central Table bargaining team dug into the proposals that we have exchanged with management over the past few weeks. Though economic proposals have to wait until the budget is set by the Legislature, we are starting to work on non-economic issues that members raised in bargaining surveys and meetings throughout the state. Follow this link to view the results of our state bargaining survey.

You may have heard that PERS is, once again, under attack. Last week the Governor announced a plan to pay down some of the PERS unfunded liability and shift some of the costs to employees. 503 Executive Director Melissa Unger says the current plan “places too much of the burden on public employees. [It] represents a broken promise to members who do their jobs every day and expect the State to hold up its end of the deal.” While it’s too early to know which proposals will gain traction, we encourage everyone to write their legislators and the Governor to let them know what a cut to retirement would mean for you and your family. Click here to email your legislators.

No matter what happens with PERS the most important thing we can do to make sure we win the raises we deserve at the bargaining table is pass real revenue reform for our state. Be sure and register for the May 20th United for a Better Oregon rally today.

* You can find March 28’s update on wages & benefits with side-by-side proposal comparisons here.