Expect 600 contract and term gone by Jan 31st and in March 300+ FTE's. The numbers mumbled at the last meeting with SP was expect to see numbers like 2400 at each facility and then there is this. SP said two years ago I want that $2M used for EBA for projects and there will be no EBA lit after LLNS takes over. Well guess what. Now that in Dec we are going to have hundreds of HIS fellow engineers and scientist on the EBA list fully supported by the overhead funds the EBA list is not a "valuable tool". The tune really changes when it close to home doesn't it SP. But here's the kicker. Some FTE non degreed people are going to be booted and these engineers and scientist are going to be put in your place while they retain their ungodly salaries instead of being RIF'd. So there's justice for you.
It even gets better people.
Demographics is playing a part in this RIF. I just wanted you to know there are federal guidelines that must be followed and they are going to go by the rules.
35 comments:
Scooby,
Thanks for the blog in general, the content, and the nicely done disclaimer.
Curious, are EEO rules and Diversity guidelines apply to those being put on the list? They apply on hiring but nowhere is it listed it applies for SSP or RIF's.
Fire some, hire some
The Laboratory is making some changes to its posting and hiring practices in the wake of workforce restructuring.
Tammy Jernigan, associate director of Strategic Human Capital Management, announced the changes in an interdepartmental memo.
All principal associate directors (PADS) will submit staffing/hiring plans to the Director’s Office to ensure the Lab proceeds cautiously with hiring activities. Jernigan said hiring will continue at a “very conservative" level and be monitored against hiring plans.
The Director’s Office will review and approve external hiring requests, including supplemental labor personnel. A lateral or promotional hire of an internal employee on a posted position, which does not effect a change in the employee’s appointment status, requires approval at the PAD and Strategic Human Capital level.
PADs have been given discretion to laterally reassign employees within the PAD in the same job family and pay grade, when it is necessary to facilitate workforce management.
Hire requests, and extensions of Lab associates and fixed-term retirees must include justification that directly tie to meeting immediate programmatic and transfer of knowledge needs.
Requests for an early conversion of flex-term to indefinite status should generally be postponed at this time.
An institutional brokering committee, chaired by Jernigan and Engineering Associate Director Steve Patterson, will review all postings to facilitate placement of employees currently in unfunded positions.
After the brokering review process, unfilled positions may continue to be posted internally and/or externally if a suitable candidate is not available. However, “internal only” postings will be limited to career indefinite employees.
For more information, contact Employment Division leader, 3-7904, or designated employee specialists.
Ok point well taken... what are the Federal rules???
To all you folks that seem to have a negative opinion of EBA's: I challenge you to provide some factual information as to why you believe they are 'bad' and should be terminated!!
Goodday
hello December 4, 2007 4:57 PM!
Why is LLNS worried about hiring practices when they are about ready to RIF hundreds!
No hiring is going to be done!
No hiring, no transfers; we are in a deep freeze!
Are they asking our opinion?
It looks like Frankie (Business PAD) just broke his promise.
One promise he made at one of the town hall meetings was "we will never make a change before we ask the employee".
December 4, 2007 9:49 PM
It was promises like this and many others that led 51% of the people at LLNL down the TCP-1 road too, most of who now wished they would have taken TCP-2. On well. On the first LLNL blog laid the information and suspicions that would make one think. I guess they didn't. We have many more years of either no information or mis-information to go. I think I read on one of the blogs where someone said,"trust no one and always question authority". It's a shame that one would have to adopt this ideology in order to feel secure but I it seems to be all that mankind has left considering the facts how corrupt big business is back by the politician who are even worse.
Yes the law requires that big organizations such as LLNL must have ( X ) %'s of each ethnic origin on board to balance the work place demographics. What the exact requirements are I'm not sure but with a little research you can find out. LLNL HR already list how many of each type we have on their website. Yes everyone is profiled regardless of how much it's denines and that's just a fact of life that will be here until mankind does not exist.
Not all EBA's are bad. In general though it has been my experience that almost all of them have some sort of issue. If you're looking for a scientific study, don't bother, none exist. Anecdotal evidence is all you are going to get.
Anyone heard about DTED dumping 40people today on the EBA list. How about it people. Start posting what ULM don't want the 8000 people of LLNL to know. I hear D&T and NAI are next to unload and the EBA list will continue to grow all through December. Watch for musiccal people next. That EBA list by March of 2008 should be made up of the 300 that will be gone.
"That EBA list by March of 2008 should be made up of the 300 that will be gone."
No it won't. You haven't been paying attention that it will be seniority based, not who is on the EBA list.
Regardless of the politics, the tollerance to have folks on payroll while they spend, in some cases years, looking for new jobs is going away. Most companies think we're out of our minds to give folks who have had their assignements a nearly unlimited amount of time to find a new job.
The good news is that we are in a hot employment area - unlike our friends at LANL - we have Silicone Valley and the Tri-Valley in our back yards.
Last point - the younger generation, the post-boomers are not expecting to work at a given emloyeer until retirement, and don't expect a pension - that is what a 401K is for.
We have spent years demanding Bay-Area corportate compensation - now we're going to have Bay-Area corporate working conditions.
No it won't. You haven't been paying attention that it will be seniority based, not who is on the EBA list.
Are you kidding? criteria can change when it benefits LLNS. A few days ago, it was seniority period. Then, it became seniority based on latest continous employment (if you left the lab and came back 2 yeats ago: your seniority is 2 years!
WHo knows? tomorrow they may decided EBAs go first and then seniority.
I have no faith in LLNS!
"Are you kidding? criteria can change when it benefits LLNS. A few days ago, it was seniority period. Then, it became seniority based on latest continous employment (if you left the lab and came back 2 yeats ago: your seniority is 2 years!
WHo knows? tomorrow they may decided EBAs go first and then seniority.
I have no faith in LLNS!"
If memory serves, the break in service affecting your seniority is the existing UC policy that was carried forward.
I'm betting that they will get enough people to take the VSP that they won't have to do a RIF of 300career employees, or at least the numbers should be severely diminished.
December 5, 2007 8:34 PM
Not so. They need 2200 to 2400 people to go between now and Oct 1st 2008. 300 is a drop in the bucket and the 600 contract that still only give us 900 out the door. Maybe if we can get 900 VSIP we'll stand a chnace but I doubt it very much.WE need to get thos over with this year so the remaining people can work stress free on what ever projects and funding that remain.Not much I figure, after NIF is done.
"Not so. They need 2200 to 2400 people to go between now and Oct 1st 2008."
Where did you get these numbers?
907pm, the numbers are striaght from DOE and NNSA weapons complex plan. you can read it for your self on the NNSA web site. I bet you must be some one who went TCP1
DOE can make all the plans they want. The truth of the matter is that the lab has a number of funding streams. Dictating staff reductions is largely an academic exercise given this.
Plans are nice, but they seldom end up having anything more than a middling relationship to reality.
Large deficits and a poor economy are far more likely to cause issues.
Where has the spse been?
http://www.spse.org/
No activity since Oct 2. Did they give up?
The answer to your question can be found in post within the first three comments.
I just heard today that the upcoming, involuntary RIFs will *NOT* be based on "inverse seniority" (i.e.; last in-first out)as per George in November, but rather by a combination of SKAs and Rank Group. Can anyone confirm this?
"907pm, the numbers are striaght from DOE and NNSA weapons complex plan. you can read it for your self on the NNSA web site."
There are no such numbers and the Complex 2030 Plan does not kick in that early to result in a massive layoff next year.
December 6, 2007 5:21 PM
This is what we have been told all along. It will not be seniority based. It will be who ever they feel have the skills necessary to meet the mission of the lab and of course we can't forget federal regulated demographics.
I think SPSE is making a mistake by being silent as of late. I'm a SPSE member, but I'm wondering if I'm just throwing my money away.
I understand the the RIF will be based on SKAs that are mission oriented for the scientists and engineers only. The rest will be seniority-based...
SPSE has been back east talking to the congressional delegation from california about how bechtel is running the lab into the ground; SPSE also sugested to delegation that the 08 budget money could not be used to block the skill crafts union UPTE.
as for you company people I sugest you read contract 44. it is found on the LLNL home page, it clearly states that site 300 will close in 2 years along with supper block and all HE projects will move to NTS, this contract is in support of the 2030 complex plan; translation 2000 to 3000 people need to go. Let the RIFING begen!!
SPSE is raking in dues right? Wonder where the money is going. In return for dues the members are getting 1 email update every few months? Something is not right.
December 7, 2007 3:24 PM
They did the same thing during the transition and then after 51% cooked their goose they came out and told everyone how bad TCP-1 was. Hell I knew that from day one and that is why I went TCP-2. NO TRUST in the LLNS and I am very gald I did what I did. I think their hads are tied by ULM
To the posters @ December 6, 2007 5:21 PM and the poster @ December 7, 2007 4:34 AM regarding that RIFS will be based on SKA rather than inverse seniority. What departments did you hear that from? I'm in engineering and have be told more than once that at the present time (always subject to change) that layoffs would be based on inverse seniority. Are other departments thinking differently?
I can understand from a lawsuit point of view why the lab would do a seniority based layoff. It's easily defendable in court. If you have to defend keeping person A vs person B on SKA in a lawsuit might be tough. Do it via seniority, it's a black and white issue. It may not keep the best workforce but it might reduce lawyer fees.
And as Dec 7 pointed out, add in the spice of required Federal demographics and you'll have an interesting stew.
My understanding is each employment series will be divided into a number of SKA categories. RIF targets will be set on each category based upon perceived future needs, and then within each category it will be inverse-seniority based. Categories and targets were posted on the LANL blog awhile ago. LLNL need not use the identical categories, but it provides an example.
10:20 PM I don't know where you are getting 2 years from but the contract is not available on the LLNL website from offsite. Please post the URL and page number of the contract. I heard from someone that works in the SuperBlock that in 10 years it will go from a Cat. 2 to a Cat. 3 nuclear facility.
December 8, 2007 5:53 PM
Here it is:
http://www.doeal.gov/mocd/
Lawrence%20Livermore%20National%20
Laboratory/SECJ-AppendixB-StatementofWorkPDF.pdf
Check out page 283, specifically. It calls for removal of all Category I and II nuclear materials from Building 332 NLT 2014, which is only 6 or 7 years from now. I believe NNSA wants to accelerate this by about 2 years.
Corrected and re-posted on behalf of anonymous:
This is a lot of to read but you must if you want to know your future. What I find a real shame is that none of this was presented to us in formal presentations via view graphs before you all had to make a choice between TCP-1 and TCP-2. Instead you were referred to the outstanding articles that appeared in the LLNL Newsline. There most definitely was an agenda and they accomplished that agenda very well. IMHO the objective was to get 8000 people from LLNL and 8-10K people from LANL off the UCRP pension plan and therefore absolving themselves of any future obligations. The RIF simply relieves their burden even more so. Less bodies translates into less obligations and lower cost. What I dislike about this entire stinking transition is that ULM is RIF exempt when in fact that force should have been the first ones cut the day LLNS took over, but then again birds of the same feather flock together. This has been proven to be true to the bone.
We have all been told that sometime in Febuary 2008 LLNS management wants to release 300 career employees. Looks like severance pay will probably be one weeks pay for every year of service - up to a maximum of 26 weeks pay. This severance pay is not at all attractive unless the employee was already planning on leaving for a better, more secure job or was already planning to retire. Many of us that have worked very hard for many years devoted our entire adult life - performing maintenance, repairs, new construction, making sure the various buildings have the utilities, etc. to keep functioning - may want to leave for other employment as it is difficult and painful to watch this lab go through this transition. Livermore Lab has been - up until this past year, a great place to work.
I know that at LANL their management wants up to 750 career employees to leave and they will be receiving up to 39 weeks of severance pay. This is not fair to the Livermore Lab employees. Livermore Lab employees should receive the same amount as LANL employees. Also, I'm curious. Does anyone remember what the severance pay / package was for the Livermore Lab employees that took the severance package back in 1996 ? I have heard the 1996 severance package was for more than 26 weeks pay.
Per Contract DE-RP52-05NA25396/DE-AC52-05NA25396
Section J, Personnel Appendix A – Page 7
Section V – Payment on Separation
url: http://www.doeal.gov/laso/NewContract.aspx (12-21-05)
Severance pay benefit:
“… one week’s pay for each year … not to exceed a total of 26 weeks pay.”
Modification A029 at
url: http://www.doeal.gov/laso/ModContract.aspx (dated: 10/16/07)
Severance Payment Schedule A
For those LANL employees that transferred from U.C. to LANS on June 1, 2006
“… not to exceed a total of 39 weeks.”
Soooo if someone (ULM? NNSA?) really wants to … the severance pay
can be change. LLNL should get the same … 39weeks/max.
LLNL 1996 VSIP: 2weeks pay per year, max 52 weeks.
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