THE EVIL BEHIND PUBLIC EMPLOYEE RETIREMENT SYSTEM - P.E.R.S.
By Attorney Jack
Swift, JD
April 2, 2015
NewsWithViews.com
Josephine
County, Oregon —You’ve got to admit that it’s
a perfect deal. You’re employed doing whatever for $100,000 per
year. You are doing your work and everybody is happy. Then one day the
boss calls you in and explains that he doesn’t want you to do the
work anymore. Rather, he wants you to stay home and not work. To make
sure that this is okay with you, he says he will raise your pay to $138,000
per year. This is terrific. He wants to pay you to not work and he’ll
give you more money than he is giving you to work.
More than that, he’ll give you a contract guaranteeing you will
get the $138,000 per year for the rest of your life - all to reward you
for not working. When you agree that sounds good to you, he quickly ends
the interview. He now has to find someone to pay $100,000 per year to
do the work he will be paying you not to do.
Just on its face, this sounds nuts. How can any employer afford to pay an employee not to work when the work must be done?
Consider also how counter-productive this can be as a policy. I have witnessed several times the situation wherein a talented happy employee who has experience and expertise suddenly realize it is costing him too much money to continue working. Sooner or later he decides he cannot afford to work not matter how important the work, how good he is, or how much he enjoys it.
Whether this sounds nuts or not, this is reality in civil service today. This is exactly what happens under PERS - the Public Employee Retirement System. Whether such a system can actually work, whether this is necessarily a giant ponzi scheme is another issue. That has been covered elsewhere. The question today is, “How did this happen?” How did the taxpayers get on the hook for such an incredible obligation?
The answer is really simple. The stage was set when John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order 10988. That order allowed federal employees the benefit of collective bargaining. No sooner was that established in the federal system than the various states extended the same benefit to state and municipal employees. That in turn led to civil service employee unions - outfits like OEA, SEIU, and AFSCME.
Collective bargaining between governments and their employees is not necessarily a bad thing. There are many aspects to collective bargaining: grievances, working conditions, work schedules, seniority rights, compensation and benefits, including retirement. I have worked on citizens budget committees. My wife was president of a large union. My son has been president of two civil service unions. At one time I was a card-carrying member of the Teamsters’ Union. I have some familiarity with the subject.
Many of the aspects of collective bargaining are very beneficial and appropriate but in the area of compensation and benefit negotiation there is a large problem. When bureaucratic administrators negotiate compensation for their workers with their workers, there is no incentive for the administrators to make the negotiations adversarial. Since administrators will obviously make more than their staff, it follows that if the staff gets a raise, the administrators must also. One cannot reasonably expect the administrators to negotiate against their own best interests. I have watched this process play out over and over again.
Alternatively, if an elected official takes over the negotiations there is another problem. The unions are in many cases responsible for the elected officer’s successful election. They contribute votes and they contribute money. How hardnosed can such a vulnerable official be?
Again, as is often the case, the governing body may handle the negotiation. Since these folks are all elected officials we still have the same conflicts which in a court proceeding would lead to recusal.
But the worst aspect of all is that contract negotiations with bargaining units are conducted in a hearing which is called an executive session. The public, the folks who must pick up the tab for whatever gets promised, are excluded from even hearing what is going on.
Thus, in any circumstance, we have the situation of a group of people in charge of the people’s money sitting down together and sharing the pot of gold they have been given. The public has no say in what is concluded. The public doesn’t even know.
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While payrolls at a particular time may be constrained by the budget supported by the local community’s general fund, promises of future benefits which will bring a bill years down the road are simply open-ended blank checks. Is it any wonder we hear so often that a local union was foregone a current raise? Ever wonder what they got in exchange?
Because the public is and has been excluded from these negotiations, the system has become entirely self-serving. The only cure is for the public to demand the negotiations be done in public and that the public be fully aware of the future obligations it will be confronting.
In the alternative, as we stand today, the public should at least be aware that there are a lot of chickens out there getting set to come home to roost. And there isn’t a thing we can do about it.
© 2015 Jack Swift - All Rights Reserved
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This ArticleJack Swift is an retired attorney.
Actively involved in the Republican Party and local politics, Jack would
love to see honest Constitution following representatives in local Josephine
County government. Jack believes if we are to save America from the grip
of evil, people must get involved on the local level and expose wrongdoers
at every opportunity. He is putting that belief in practice.
E-Mail: jhswft@earthlink.net
