SALEM -- On a day when 27,000 state workers were taking an unpaid day off to save the government money, thousands of them gathered at the state Capitol on Friday to tell lawmakers they're tired of bearing the burden of the state's troubled finances.
As collective bargaining heats up, unions groups and other advocacy organizations brought 36 busloads of demonstrators from around Oregon as a show of force to those who decide on employee pay.
"This is our voice, and this is how we can tell management that we don't provide services that can be cut," said Greg Pelton, 32, an operations analyst at the Driver and Motor Vehicle Services Division. "The proposal that management has given us is unacceptable, and nobody should stand for that."
Pelton came to the rally with his wife, Melissa Pelton, and their 3-year-old son. Melissa, an office specialist at the Oregon State Hospital, said she's concerned about how her family would pay for child care and other important services if she and her husband both see significant reductions in their take-home pay.
Clad in union T-shirts -- purple for the Service Employees International Union, green for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees -- the demonstrators waved signs and chanted to lawmakers working in the Capitol.
"Don't hurt those most at risk. Oregon needs a better fix," they yelled.
The state's initial proposal to public employee unions would result in smaller paychecks for union workers through decreased pay, and increased health care and retirement costs.
Gov. John Kitzhaber's administration proposed that spending on employee health care be capped at the current level, with increased costs becoming workers' responsibilities. It also proposed that workers take a 3 percent pay cut through seven unpaid days off and pick up a 6 percent contribution to their retirement plans that is now covered by the state.
"This is an extremely tight budget," said Tim Raphael, a Kitzhaber spokesman. "We've made deep cuts to education, health care, human services. And that's why the governor has been so focused on changing the way the state does business to provide the services that Oregonians need and deserve in the most efficient and effective way possible."
Last week, state officials gave a marginally better offer, but the negotiations are continuing, said Karen Miller, an Oregon Health Authority employee and member of the SEIU bargaining team working on pay and benefit issues for 23,000 state workers.
"Obviously this is not about reason and logic," Miller said of the state's offer. "So we are taking this opportunity to show them that we have support from working families across Oregon."
The state faces a $3.1 billion gap between projected revenue and the estimated cost of continuing current services. The Great Recession decimated investments, significantly increasing the cost of required government contributions to the Public Employee Retirement System, the pension plan for state workers.
All sides agree that government workers will see smaller paychecks when lawmakers wrap up negotiations on a budget for the next two years. But workers say cutting their paychecks is just an attempt to take the easy way out of a budget crisis.
"We think we're getting the short end for what we do for the state," said Kurt Rhomberg, 56, a bridge worker for the Oregon Department of Transportation in Milwaukie. "We just want fairness."
Demonstrators encouraged lawmakers to adopt the recommendations from a report issued by SEIU, which proposed alternatives to service cuts including more aggressive tax collection and trimming management. State lawmakers are considering a bill that would set an employee-to-manager ratio of 11-to-1 when possible in agencies with at least 100 employees.
The SEIU report said the average employee-to-manager ratio in the largest state agencies -- those with at least 1,000 employees -- is 6.1-to-1. The ratio is 4.6-to-1 in smaller agencies, the union reported.
