Blog purpose

This BLOG is for LLNL present and past employees, friends of LLNL and anyone impacted by the privatization of the Lab to express their opinions and expose the waste, wrongdoing and any kind of injustice against employees and taxpayers by LLNS/DOE/NNSA. The opinions stated are personal opinions. Therefore, The BLOG author may or may not agree with them before making the decision to post them. Comments not conforming to BLOG rules are deleted. Blog author serves as a moderator. For new topics or suggestions, email jlscoob5@gmail.com

Blog rules

  • Stay on topic.
  • No profanity, threatening language, pornography.
  • NO NAME CALLING.
  • No political debate.
  • Posts and comments are posted several times a day.

Monday, June 30, 2008

How to file a grievance

Contributed anonymously:

Complaint resolution form in DOC format


From SPSE today...

DEADLINE FAST APPROACHING TO CHALLENGE YOUR LAYOFF --- PLEASE READ THIS

SPSE-UPTE has been gathering demographic information from the Lab employees laid off during the week of May 19th. Reviewing this information and LLNS policy, we believe that most of the people affected have justification to file grievances or discrimination complaints. They are as follows:



1. A formal grievance to LLNS claiming violation of LLNS layoff policy in combination with labor or case law. In determining order of layoff, companies are allowed to make exceptions to inverse seniority and skip over less senior employees only if they possess unique skills or abilities that do not exist elsewhere in the company. Generally, labor boards and the courts have found that instances of skipping should not amount to more than 10% of a workforce. LLNS excluded around 40% of its employees from the layoff pool. This is clearly far more than the law intended.
2. Well over 90% of the employees we contacted or who contacted us were over 40 years old. We believe that the age of the general Lab population is distributed more evenly. A difference in age distribution between the general workforce and the laid off employees would demonstrate a prima facie case for age discrimination. An age discrimination complaint can be filed with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing.



If you wish to file a grievance, you must get a Complaint Resolution Form (CRF) to LLNL's Staff Relations Division no later than June 20, 2008. Attached is an appropriately filled out CRF for the charge we just described. You need only fill in the personal information on the top part of the form, and send it to this address:



Robert Perko

Division Leader, Staff Relations, L-708

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

P. O. Box 808

Livermore, CA 94550



Or, you can use this form as a template and craft your own charge with details of your specific situation. In either case, you should file the complaint before the deadline. Even if you are talking to an attorney you should still file the complaint if you believe (as we do) that Laboratory policy was violated. You can always withdraw the grievance later if for any reason you change your mind. You should expect that LLNS will deny the complaint at the initial step. That's normal. When this happens you should ask for independent review by an outside arbitrator rather than by an internal panel. Moreover, at this stage you should seek representation. Do not try to go it alone.



Also, if you are above 40, consider filing an age discrimination complaint with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing in parallel with your grievance. To learn about this, go to:



http://www.dfeh.ca.gov/complaints/Default.aspx?process=employment#main_content_1



Filing with DFEH automatically carries over into a duplicate filing with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.



The process of filing a grievance or discrimination complaint can be difficult. Moreover, it is beyond SPSE-UPTE's ability to represent every individual who wishes to file. We suggest that if you file a grievance, you also obtain legal advice in the matter before your case reaches the arbitration stage.



We have obtained demographic information from a large fraction of the individuals that were laid off. We have raw data on age, gender, and ethnicity, among other things. We offer this information, along with a list of people who were laid off, for your use in any internal complaint resolution or legal action. Bear in mind that our layoff list is not completely accurate, though it is more than 95% so. It represents our best estimate from sources we had at our disposal. If you or your legal representative believes this information will be useful, please contact SPSE-UPTE at spse@spse.org. We wish you well in asserting you rights.



_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _



Society of Professionals, Scientists & Engineers
Local 11 University Professional and Technical Employees, CWA Local 9119
P.O. Box 1066, Livermore, CA 94551
(925) 449-4846 voice
(925) 449-4851 fax
Office Hours: Mon. - Fri. 8am to Noon

Thursday, June 26, 2008

What did not they mention this?

Anonymously contributed:

How come you didn't hear anything about this at Ed Moses all hands meeting today and did you notice that George hasn't said a word either?

Full article

Lawmakers demand security probe!


article

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Layoffs of Scientists at Lawrence Livermore Lab Hurt Morale, Report Says

From a blog called the "Chronicle of higher education"
More important than the article itself are the comments that follow.

Article

Monday, June 23, 2008

So, have you been beat into submission?

Well, if people actually respond to this post, I'll try to convince Scooby that this BLOG deserves to survive. Ok, that's not exactly true, but is one of the facts. Me, I've mostly been beat into submission. I guess that I'm just so tired of the BS that we've put up with for so long. Georgie really does not have a clue as to what is actually going on, and really never should have been put in a ULM position (don't get me wrong, he's a GREAT physicistst, but a lously manager. In-so-far-as our current management goes, they're going to have to kill or at least seriously hurt someone before they realize what they are doing - but no one will admit to that (dead or not). Yes, I'm VERY happy that I still have a job. This BLOG is our only outlet - please support it. It is Scooby's BLOG and we need to support him/her. I'm sure that ULM does look at this BLOG and you as the reader have a chance to post with no worries about reprucussions. We will protect your anonimity - we won't evne publish your IP adress unlike the LANL BLOG - we just want to share very inportant information.

Friday, June 20, 2008

How Valuable Are You To LLNS

The good news is LLNS or ULM is looking at people SKA's and overall performance in conjunction with the needs of the company. This to me means those who are marginal or worse will be gone very shortly probally starting on Oct 1st, 2009. This may or may not be the case with all of those who got laid off, however I suspect those who were very good employees like the ones I know who did get laid off simply meant they were in jobs that LLNS has no intention of ever supporting or they were jobs LLNS has intentions of out-sourcing on an AS NEEDED contract basis. Yes, this means there will be more cleaning of the house which consequently means more people will lose their jobs over the next 18 months.

Take a look at yourself and ask yourself a question. Am I in a service oriented organization whose job could be done by a firm outside LLNL on a contact basis or via the Internet. If the answer is yes, I'd be real worried. People who are in business services, gardeners, custodians, procurement, plant engineering of any type, external security, or most any job that could be out-sourced need to be worried.

LLNS is just another General Motors who as of today just shut down an assembly plant and sent all the work to Mexico. Yes, that cost all those people their jobs, but did GM worry about that or even care? No. They are in the business of making money and they take their business where it's the cheapest to get the job done, and where they have no long term obligation of pension, 401k , health care, etc, etc , etc.

None of us have secure "jobs" anymore. We have all been screwed out of what we were to get and the screwing isn't going to stop no matter how many calming speeches we get from ULM. The flood gates are open and people of all types are going to start being sent through those gates at warp speed until we are no better than any mediocre company on the outside of this one square mile fence.

How many of you understand this concept and are willing to work within this parameter? If you're not, you are in a world of crap, because that's the way it's going to be. You'll come to work every day with full intention of doing a good job but at any time within that day you could be gone. All any of us can do is prepare ourselves for termination and have an alternate plan in place so "when" you get axed, you simply hand them your badge, keys, pagers, sign the forms and exit without any remorse, as one of my friends did.

That's how it went down for one supervisor Thursday. They walked into his office,to him his job was no longer needed, asked for his keys, badge and pager and then said sign here. There was no warning, and he was gone in 45 minutes without hitting the processing trailers. He was a supervisor who started at LLNL in 1976 and needed six more years to reach social security benefits age in order to have a good livable income without having to become a K-Mart greeter.

His job came to an end with no warning. He now has barely enough to live on, will have to gather his 401K, 403b, UC-DCP plan into a single fund and start his SEPP to subsidize his "minuscule" UCRP pension check until he's 59.5 years old, where at that time he can select to continue to draw the IRS fixed allocation or start drawing any amount he wished from his defered savings account. Is he mad? Yes, but just maybe over time he'll be glad he no longer has to worry about being fired each and every day.

By the way he was "never" on the EBA list, "never" had any run in with management and "never" was on their radar for any misdoings. He was a hard working dedicated lab employee who went beyond the call of duty everyday to assure LLNL's mission was met.

Did that make any difference? No.

In the end he was deemed "worthless" to the organization and was tossed out the gate like a piece of trash, humiliated and left wondering. IMHO, it's LLNS loss, not his. He will overcome his tramma simply because of his demeanor and self confidence. He, is a man of honor and a patriot, and will be remembered by many for these attributes. LLNS on the otherhand "in this case" will be remembered for their abusiveness, stupidity and tyranny.

The question that remains is this. When it's your turn, will you prevail the agony or vanish into oblivion without a trace. What each and everyone of us must remember is this simply fact. You will be treated no differently, so be prepared.

Daily layoff tally - part II-

The original post was getting very long. So, time to start a new one.

Please post comments anytime a layoff happens in your department, whether it is 3161-related or not.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Does anyone believe the Engineering AD?

Anonymously asked:

On Wed. (6/18) the departing Engineering AD held an all-hands meeting to explain how the layoff was good for the Lab and will enable us to have a bright future. Attendance was not that great. Anyone believe what he said?

Department of Energy: Information on Its Management of Costs and Liabilities for Contractors’ Pension and Postretirement Benefit Plans

Contributed by Frank Young:


http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08642r.pdf

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

California to be Sucking Lemons

Anonymously contributed:

Obama tells California to eat dog dodo and like it. Here's some facts for you.

http://wsws.org/articles/2009/jun2009/cali-j18.shtml

There's also some very important news within this article that the good old news media like ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN forgot to tell you. Please read the entire article and pass along.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

LAPIS disabled temporarily.

Anonymously asked:

In today's News Online, "LAPIS view paycheck temporarily disabled" Does this mean that additional people will be recieving their final paycheck on short notice?

Monday, June 16, 2008

Are GM and ULM guilt of high treason?

Contributed anonymously:

1. Aid and comfort to the enemy. The capabilities of the US to defend itself from future threats are certainly less now. Not doubt Russia, China, and Middle-East powers are greatly pleased by the destruction of LLNL.

2. There was intent to commit harm on the US by crippling the ability of LLNL to be a competent steward of the nuclear stockpile. GM and ULM cannot claim ignorance of what might happen. This is supported by the timeline of events and number of managers who collaborated in the efforts. Clearly the actions taken were carefully planned and widely discussed prior to execution. Therefore malice and forethought.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

How to breath life into this BLOG

New Topic: How to breath some life into this Blog:
Anonymous said:

I've been following this Blog now since its creation and occasional post to it. It is dull, lifeless and almost useless.

With all that's gone on at LLNL in the last several months, one would think it would be a place where all would go the first chance they had. This is not the case.

A couple of suggestions:
- Take off monitoring to get faster turn-around.

- Allow critical posts which should get people thinking and commenting. I tried to do this several weeks ago, but people just passed over it.

- I suspect it may be a lot of work to run a Blog, but you might do some research to see what the secrets of successful ones are.

Change the way you look at things...

There needs to be a shift in thinking. The outside is actually much better than the lab right now. Many companies do their best to make the employees happy, and pay them well.

"You feel bad for those without jobs and yet at the same time very grateful you kept yours."

I was let go, and I feel the opposite. I feel sorry for those who are left in that place.

You have to look really hard in the bay area to find a place that treat's employees like LLNS does, and has the added bonus of being a toxic superfund site with radioactive material. Did I mention the asbestos in those old buildings? You know that if there is a major earthquake, everything in those buildings can become contaminated with asbestos, including you, right?


"Hang it there the best you can."

Do yourself a favor and find a better company to work for. Really. Come back in 6 years when the LLNS contract is over, if you really want to.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

What is the list PSO has?

Anonymously contributed:

Coming into the lab on a weekend call-out the PSO have a list that he checks before letting me in. He made sure I won't be able to look at the list by standing behind the driver's side. Anyone have an idea or know what's the list is for? Does it have anything to do with the end of June flex lay-off?

Mission accomplished!

anonymously contributed:


Mission accomplished!

Saturday, June 7, 2008

From true believer to laid off!

Part of being a career employee of LLNL in the past was that in some way you were a "true believer" of the mission.

You had to be in some way. To endure the continuing background checks, the less-than-par salary, the internal politics, and of course the emnity of many groups that hated the Lab. You believed that what you worked on was rightous, that your government was good and you were proud to make personal sacrifices for your country.

And now...

That country has decided you are a disposable commodity. No pat on the back or even a handshake. A guard with a gun marched you out the gate and slammed it behind you. Betrayed, alone, shattered.

There is no reason to be proud of this country anymore. None at all.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Coincidence?

Anonymous said:

I was laid off on Friday May 23. When I went to the ISP Resource Center this week, I felt vaguely uncomfortable. After thinking a minute I realized why - every single laid-off person there was a white man in his 50s! I'm not used to such uniformity, at LLNL or anywhere else. Is this a coincidence or is something going on here?

Scooby's note: Look at the poll on the side bar: 42% are > 50.

Time for action!

Anynymously contributed:

Thank you SPSE-UPTE for your offer to assist the career workers that were laid off from LLNL on May 22 and May 23. I have 3 decades of faithful and productive service to LLNL. I have a perfect work history and always got very good or outstanding employee appraisals and was told on 5-22-08 to get out and we don't want you back. For Management to treat me and my co-workers like they did on the lay off day was outrageous.

I will take your advice and file a complaint resolution form before June 20 as the seniority rules were not followed in my work group. One big issue is the lay off unit I was placed in - management won't tell me which one my co-workers and I were placed in. All of us that were unfairly laid off need to FIGHT BACK.

Anyone know the name of a good Labor Law attorney that has many years of experience with this type of case as I believe a class action suit should be started.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Open up the layoff process and preserve academic freedom!

June 4, 2008
From SPSE:


Last week SPSE-UPTE asserted that every laid-off employee has grounds to grieve his or her layoff. These employees have a number of reasons to file a grievance. The layoff process had irregularities and its outcome may reflect an unlawful bias in the decision making process. Moreover, grievances over the layoff would benefit everyone who remains at LLNL. Chief among these benefits would be exposing the LLNS layoff process to scrutiny, protecting academic freedom, and preserving the right to grieve.

Employees have only 30 days after the offending event to file a grievance or request an extension. For those laid off May 22nd or 23rd, this deadline falls on the weekend of June 21st. Since LLNS refuses to release information on the number and composition of many of the business units formed to implement the layoffs, merely gathering the evidence to form a viable case will take longer than 30 days. SPSE-UPTE is painstakingly interviewing the laid-off employees to refine the list of those laid off, and to record the circumstances of individual layoffs.

In categorically urging every separated employee to challenge his or her layoff, we were responding to the irregularities that surrounded this particular involuntary separation. The most obvious of these irregularities was the large fraction of the Lab's workforce that was excluded. We also noted that some organizations subdivided their employees into so many layoff units that seniority played little if any role in determining the order of layoff for the non-200 series employees within a given job code. Manipulating layoff units to circumvent seniority would be a violation of policy and the law. We are also looking carefully at the possibility of age discrimination in the choices that LLNS made.

In pursuing grievances, laid-off employees stand to learn much more than LLNS has volunteered to date about the layoff process, particularly if the grievances proceed to arbitration. With information such as the composition of business units, everyone can better assess how consistently and properly the layoff was carried out.

Bringing public scrutiny to LLNS' layoff procedures would discourage their removing someone who chooses to disagree with a dominant or politically expedient view and is therefore branded as a maverick and not a "team player." Management by UC had its faults, but academic freedom and transparency were valued. SPSE-UPTE is determined to preserve these values, even in a private sector limited liability company.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Brain drain!

Anonymously contributed:


Read this first


Why in the world did LLNL terminate technical experts? There are so many useless doofusses roaming the lab to this day, not to mention most of the spineless technically incompetent managers, how in the world did they decide to lay off people like the guy interviewed in this article? The super-secret layoff-decisions crew ought to lose their security clearances and be forced to testify in Congress about their methodology for determining who to lay off. Then, technical experts that were laid off should be brought back and put in charge of a new round of layoffs targeting managers only. The least technically competent managers will go first. Then the LLNS idiots. We will target a manager to scientist ratio of 1/50. We will be financially solvent immediately, no one will miss the useless managers and we can recover our mission of science in the national interest.

Monday, June 2, 2008

Senate approves $165B for Iraq and Afghanistan


How did you senator vote?

Lets Be Postive For A Change

Please post anon.

This is very hard for me to write no longer believe but I think it would be fun to see what input this will bring. I sincerely hope only positive comments about LLNL future will be posted under this topics no matter how bad people are going to want to jump all over the poster anatomy. I'm hoping the nay-sayers will just allow the people who have a positive attitude and out look for LLNL to post their honest opinions, hopes and dreams. Maybe some of us will actually be able to see some hope and light at the end of the tunnel.

So lets assume George is not lying and FY-09 funding is adequate to sustain the life of all who remain at LLNL after Oct 1st, 2008 and all projects are funded 100%. Can anyone paint a picture of what we'll be doing at LLNL for the next year and how the outcome of these jobs will benefit the nation?

Good Information - Ask Fidelity

I can't figure out the employee's age, so I don't know whether or not this applies or not. However, if you are over 55 years of age and since you have separated from LLNL (either from UC if TCP2 or LLNS for TCP1), you can take any of the money from the 403b or DCP accounts without having to roll it over and wait until 59.5 and start up the SEPP, etc. The actual retirement is another thing, but the retirement savings is yours to take. Of course, you have to figure out tax implications, because any money you take and don't roll over will count as income in the year you receive it.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Seek workers' ideas on how to avoid layoffs


May be LLNS can learn from this

How The Government Waste Your Tax Dollars

I Found this while reading a old Jan 08 Readers Digest and could'nt help but think that "if" the Government was open about the way it spends our money, we would have more money to spend on research. Read this article, it certainly opened my eyes a little wider!!!

How Your Tax Dollars Are Spent

tigger

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