Other agencies don't have the same authority!!
I thought we were employees of a private company. DOE still has power over us. We benefit neither from being a government employee nor a private sector employee!
We get the worst of both worlds! or is my perception distorted?
http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2010/12/22/unique-arrangement-allows-doe-to-freeze-contractor-pay.aspx
8 comments:
What really gets me is that all the Executive Management at the Labs are still insulated from this freeze. If the DOE wants to save significant monies they need to change the rules and dig into these multilayered and deep Lab Executive pockets. Something is really wrong with this current arrangement, unless of course your Mikey, Paul, George, or Ringo!!
Let's review... at LANL we've had several years of little to no raises for the general technical staff, the new DOE promise of no raises until 2014 at the earliest, rising medical contributions by 30% this year and more to come for next year, plus salary contributions to the decaying TCP1 pension which are to rise to 8% of salary by early 2012.
Meanwhile, the top management has totally pig'ed out on inflated salaries and a juicy 20% bonus each year (which is protected from the DOE salary freeze!).
While most scientists hate unions, it would have been far better fo the remaining technical staff if they had unionized before the "for-profit" LLC take-over. Lab management and the DOE/NNSA have quickly learned that they can walk all over the non-unionized work force at their labs and will continue to do so with a vengeance.
It only gets better if you read the last e-mail that came out over the Christmas holidays. It appears the workers will not get a pay raise for two years, but upper level management and all those who normally get bonus checks will get theirs as normal for doing such a shit hot job.
Could it get even worse? Some bankrupt EU nations are starting to seize private pensions to cover massive government debts. Yikes!
***
"European nations begin seizing private pensions"
(Christian Science Monitor, Jan 4, 2011)
Hungary, Poland, and three other nations take over citizens' pension money to make up government budget shortfalls.
www.csmonitor.com/Business/
The-Adam-Smith-Institute-Blog/
2011/0102/European-nations-begin
-seizing-private-pensions
January 4, 2011 10:27 AM
They really need to start stringing pricks like this up on the nearest lamp post, letting them hang there with a note on their chest that says, "The next SOB that tries this will get the same thing" It's the only way to resolve such a delimma.
I am with Ok with being frozen temporarily. Compared to people who have been searching for employment or those who have had cuts, a freeze is ok.
what turns my stomach is the rhetoric that DOE/NNSA and Lab management repeat all the time:
for example: "we want to continue to retain and attract the best and the brightest"!
Ah! Ah!
1) we never did attract the best for a long time. Those who wait 3 or more months (a year in one case)(that is how long the hiring process takes at LLNL) cannot be that bright!
2) With a freeze, it is unlikely anyone will want to work here, unless they ask for a huge salary to start with.
Einstein knows that no one reads this blog.
NNSA/DOE's 4-step game plan for the labs:
Step 1. Freeze lab pay for many years to come.
Step 2. Freeze payments for retiree medical.
Step 3. Freeze any future payments for severance.
Step 4. Freeze the TCP1 pension and 401k match.
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