Republican Meg Whitman is sharpening her focus on one of the main foils of the billionaire executive's gubernatorial campaign: unions, particularly those representing public employees.

Her TV commercials attack GOP primary rival Steve Poizner for "joining liberal unions" to support a 2000 ballot measure that lowered the vote threshold to pass school bonds. She rejects a timeline to release her taxes, dismissing the demand as coming from a "union front for Jerry Brown." She insists that state employees make financial concessions to help balance the budget.

All of these moves are calculated to help Whitman tap into conservative and Tea Party frustrations with the increasing size of government.

At the same time, the former eBay CEO thinks private-sector workers - particularly those from the technology world - can do a better job making government more efficient and thrifty. If elected, she plans to recruit at least 100 of her top 300 key appointees from the private sector.

'Cold, hard truth'

Pointing to at least $60 billion in underfunded public-employee pensions and a $20 billion state budget deficit, Whitman told reporters in Santa Clara at the California Republican Party convention over the weekend that "here's the cold, hard truth: We have a government we can no longer afford."

She believes she can carve at least $15 billion in savings from the state budget, with the largest chunk coming from givebacks from government workers. She plans to trim 40,000 of them from the state rolls over the next four years, largely through attrition. The cuts could include some University of California and prison workers, but not public safety employees.

She will ask the University of California to look at rolling back its staffing to 2004-05 levels. She wants to use some of the savings from state cutbacks to reverse tuition increases and invest $1 billion in higher education, largely into research areas.

Whitman proposes to raise state workers' retirement age from 55 to 65, and will also ask public employees to double the amount of salary contributions to their pension plans - from 5 percent to 10 percent.

"I think the era of a defined benefit program is over relative to a defined contribution plan," said Whitman, who told Chronicle columnist Debra J. Saunders last week that she has never directly negotiated with unions before.

And when it comes to choosing her top appointments as governor, Whitman expressed confidence that top private-sector employees would take a pay cut and move to Sacramento. During the past year that she has campaigned for governor, she said she has received promises from many that they would join her administration to provide a fresh perspective on how to change government. She declined to name any.

Many retired Silicon Valley executives who have made their fortunes might be "ready to leave their mark" in public service, said Carl Guardino, CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, a public policy trade association that represents 300 of the valley's top companies. He noted that "retired" in Silicon Valley could mean anyone from "30 years old to 80."

"My sense is that Silicon Valley workers would leap at the chance to serve in state government for four to eight years," said Guardino, whose organization doesn't endorse candidates. Guardino has long known Whitman, but is not affiliated with her campaign.

"I have never witnessed so many technology executives and workers who are concerned about the health of the state," he said. If Whitman - or any candidate, he said - were looking for 100 appointees "they could find 1,000 here easily."

'Pay cut'

But Deborah Burger, president of the 86,000-member California Nurses Association, said Whitman's proposed changes for public employee union workers "are essentially a pay cut. People won't see that money until they retire."

Instead of calling for concessions from highly paid executives or fees for flush oil companies, Whitman "is attacking people who can't do damage to her politically," Burger said.

However, the nurses and other unions are trying to challenge Whitman. Burger said the California Nurses Association Political Action Committee recently contributed $100,000 to Level the Playing Field 2010, a coalition of liberal activists and unions that have aired ads assailing Whitman.

Other independent coalitions, which cannot coordinate with any candidate's campaign, are planning to provide $40 million in anti-Whitman attacks.

Whitman isn't alone in targeting unions. In his speech to convention delegates, Poizner, the state insurance commissioner, said government employees wield disproportionate clout.

"We have to curb the power of the public employee unions, period. Small percentage of the total population," he said while spreading his hands wide apart. "(But) this much of the percentage of the political power. Public employee unions control what goes on in Sacramento, they will block reforms."

Targeting Whitman

But it is Whitman, the front-runner in the early polls, who is getting most of the attention from unions.

"Her attacks on nurses, teachers, painters, the people who work with their hands and their backs - the very people that built this country and who are now under enormous stress because of the economic challenges - goes right to the fact that she does not have the character to be governor," said Chris Lehane, a Democratic consultant who is one of the organizers of Level the Playing Field 2010.