thief said...
From Newsline:
The Laboratory's Personnel Policy Manual (PPM), Section G - "Benefits" has been updated to ensure compliance with Contract 44, state and federal laws.
There are numerous changes including the following:
II.7 "Termination Vacation Pay" - all terminating employees will separate employment on their last day worked, regardless of the reason for the termination. Those employees who are retiring from the Laboratory will need to report to work on their final day of employment and will be paid for all hours worked as well as remaining accrued vacation leave on their last day worked, and IV.4 "Effect on Personnel Policies" and VIII.6 "LWOP for Temporary Workers' Compensation" - employees on leave for a worker's compensation injury or illness will accrue leave only if they meet the standard eligibility criteria.
The revised policy language can be viewed here. These revisions are effective June 22. For questions related to these changes, contact Patricia Rzeszutko.
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23 comments:
I don't understand the point of the rule change, I guess. This just means that you have to be on site on your last day.
I guess NNSA/LLNS wants a day's work for a day's wage.
If your job includes a lot of computer access you won't be doing much since you had to turn in your token(s) as part of the checkout process.
I would presume you would get security debriefings before hand and your access to areas may be limited.
You've already cleaned out the office (and had someone sign off on that as well).
Bring in a deck of cards or a book. Hmm, that might not be different from a normal day for some.
Stop this incessant rumor mongering about an approaching RIF.
Don't you get it by now? The NNSA privatized labs no longer have to use the RIF solution or even inducements with a voluntary separation program (VSP). Those methods of down-sizing the labs are too expensive.
Since privatization, they can much more easily fire or push-out any employees they don't want and avoid all of the messy federal regulations and expense that an official RIF or VSP involves.
"...The NNSA privatized labs no longer have to use the RIF solution or even inducements with a voluntary separation program (VSP).
Essentially correct, but the new employment policy changes regarding "seniority, "VAC", "at will", etc. all serve to reduce the possibility of wrongful termination/RIF/layoff entanglements.
These LLNS policy changes have associated costs presumably outweighed by new legal protections to LLNS. It is reasonable to assume LLNS intends to make use of these new policies at some point. You may call that a rumor if you wish.
Any significant employment policy changes should have been grandfathered in. Pre-2007 LLNS employees should collectively file a lawsuit against LLNS for the growing set of "bait and switch" changes to our employment referenced to their pre-2007 sales pitch. Don't count on the "yes man" in SHRM to help us.
Don't you get it by now? The NNSA privatized labs no longer have to use the RIF solution or even inducements with a voluntary separation program (VSP). Those methods of down-sizing the labs are too expensive.
LLNL has had 1 formal RIF and 2 VSP's since becoming a private organization 6 1/2 years ago. Clearly, privatization has not eliminated these solutions for workforce reduction.
However, it is unlikely that these rule changes are associated with a near-term RIF/VSP. More likely, these changes are due to the need of management to feel important. Since management shows all but no ability to bring in funds or make other useful contributions to the Laboratory (our decreasing budgets demonstrate this to be so), they engage in constant and near meaningless administrative changes so they can feel good about themselves.
And these changes are counterproductive. Many pending retirees use remaining vacation days to extend their employment period rather than take leftover vacation as a lump sum payment. This increases their age factor, service credit, and HAPC, which provides the retiree with a higher pension payout. Equally so, terminating employees accumulate additional vacation days (and holidays) when vacation is used in this way. The financial benefits are substantial, amounting to tens of thousands of dollars in some cases. Retiring employees will still do this, except now they need to come back to the Laboratory for a final day after using all of their vacation time. Little will get done on this final day, but someone needs to pay for it.
If this policy change is so important, why wasn't it in place last year or the year before or five years ago? Is the situation somehow different today to merit this change. No. It is simply another useless and in this case expensive administrative action. Your management at work, including a micromanaging NNSA.
"...LLNL has had 1 formal RIF and 2 VSP's since becoming a private organization 6 1/2 years ago. Clearly, privatization has not eliminated these solutions for workforce reduction..."
The RIF was followed by a massive lawsuit you may remember. LLNS policy changes in recent years are likely
"Lessons Learned" legal adjustments to prevent or minimize future lawsuits. LLNS knows where the DOE/NNSA inquiry thresholds are triggered and therefore wants policies in place to best navigate around them.
Just part of the new Employee Appreciation Program.
Totally useless move.
LLNL does not need to use RIFs anymore, since it can lay off (and have been laying off) people gradually, at a rate below the WARN act level. Why they made this rule change, I don't know, but it seems pretty harmess.
Maybe they made this update for exactly the reason they said they made it:
"...to ensure compliance with Contract 44, state and federal laws"
I agree they've done some slimy things since the contract transition, and we're wise to keep a watchful eye on this stuff, but this seems neither nefarious or consequential...
Nonsense. You are not prohibited by state and federal law from taking vacation prior to retirement.
State and federal law recognize vacation time as earned salary.
Does LLNS think, under this circumstance, that they have the authority to withhold salary? Aren't there state & federal laws against that as well?
All it says is, you have to be on site on your last day. If you want to burn all your vacation before that, instead of leave and then get paid for it later with a check (might be some advantages, I don't know), you can do that. Just have to be on site on your final day. I don't see anything about withholding pay.
What happens if you're not on site the last day (the implied withholding salary).
A better solution is to let the employee decide if they want to be on site for their last day or use a vacation day.
They can out-process accordingly. Contract 44 doesn't specifically dictate either way.
"...to ensure compliance with Contract 44, state and federal laws"
Did federal or state laws, or Contract 44, recently change to warrant this action? I doubt it. I cannot speak for Contract 44, but other organizations allow employees to take their vacation time as leave through their last day of work.
Regardless, either the Laboratory is incompetent because it is making policy changes for the thrill of it, or it is incompetent because it has been in violation of the law for many years.
The best financial strategy for employees - especially TCP1 employees with significant accumulated vacation who retire before age 60 - is to extend the termination date by taking vacation as regular leave. Do not take vacation as a lump sum payment.
For example, I'm maxed out on accumulated vacation (48 days). By extending my termination date by taking vacation as regular leave, my pension payment will increase by over 3% due to an increased age factor, additional service credit, and higher HAPC. More so, I will accumulate ~5 additional vacation days and be paid for any holidays while taking this final vacation. Free money. This doesn't happen if I accept a lump sum payment for unused vacation. (To be fair, the delay/loss of pension income while taking vacation needs to be subtracted from the gains, but the employee still comes out way ahead.)
While a little awkward, this policy change does not significantly impact the employee. All it means is that the employee needs to show up to work one final day after using up all vacation days. No real work is likely to be performed on this final day but the employee still needs to get paid. This means that the Laboratory's cost of doing business goes up.
Sure, it's a violation of Chapter 44, State, and Federal law to take your last day of your career as a vacation day. Heaven forbid.
Someone probably got a bonus or gold star for this one. Pure bureaucratic baloney.
And to clear up an earlier piece of misinformation: on your last day of employment, they hand you a check for all your unused vacation pay. They don't send it to you later.
Why unnecessarily irritate employees with this poor employee relations move?
No contract or laws are broken by taking your last day as a vacation day.
LLNS may have had good intent, but it comes off as being petty.
Why unnecessarily irritate employees with this poor employee relations move?
No contract or laws are broken by taking your last day as a vacation day.
LLNS may have had good intent, but it comes off as being petty.
These sorts of changes are *always* made for one reason, because it saves money. If it saves LLNS money, that money comes from someone else, and that someone else must be leaving/retiring employees. There's no other logical reason for the change, and the wording about "compliance" is a smoke screen (note they do not say they were previously not in compliance). Maybe this is only a fraction of leaving/retiring employees, but someone somewhere has run the numbers and decided that LLNS will save more than it cost to implement the change.
For how long do you have to be on site on your last day, a full eight hours? One hour? As long as it takes to do whatever they expect you to do on your last day? Unless I missed it I didn't see any specific details.
Management must really have nothing to do, if they are coming up with this nonsense.
Unless there was a new external requirement, there is a calculated dollar payoff for LLNS in this.
This change in rules has the effect of preventing people that are retiring in Nov from collecting pay for the Thanksgiving holidays. This happens 4 years out of every 7, when there is no November workday after the holiday. This year is one of those years.
I'm sure this was a vast conspiracy. Those Bechtel accountants sure are sneaky.
Hey, there's a big disaster drill coming up at LLNL. I bet it's part of LLNL's sneaky preparation for a RIF.
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