OSHU Gets Workers to Pay 6 Percent PERS Contribution

Oregon Health & Science University won a high-profile concession in its recently concluded contract negotiations with AFSCME Local 328, which represents about 5,300 employees at the city's largest employer.

As public-sector employers struggle to contain benefit costs, the practice of employers paying a six percent pension contribution on employees' behalf has come under scrutiny.

The practice dates to 1979, when the Legislature approved the employer pick-up as a method of providing compensation when the state and local governments were broke. Since then, according to a 2011 City Club review of the Public Employee Retirement System, about 70 percent of public employees see their employers pay the six percent.

But after five months of contract talks that concluded in mid-August, OHSU finally got AFSCME to agree that employees will in future pay the six percent themselves. In exchange, workers got a supplemental pay increase that compensates them for some, although not all, of the six percent that will now be deducted from their pre-tax pay.

WWeek 2015