From a young persons prospective employee's perspective, what are the material differences if any, between the former non-profit UC/LLNL management, and the current for-profit LLNS management in terms of career growth, engineering valuation, communication openness, etc.?
12 comments:
You probably already know that a lot of us old-timers believe that the UC management system was better in many ways. But why are you asking as a young, prospective LLNL employee? It’s not like you have a choice about which management system to work under.
-Doug
The LLCs did away with pensions. This erodes longevity and thus accrued experience within the system. Some might also say that loyalty to the mission has declined. The answers to your tactical questions thus derive from that position.
"You probably already know that a lot of us old-timers believe that the UC management system was better in many ways. But why are you asking as a young, prospective LLNL employee? It’s not like you have a choice about which management system to work under."
I am one of those UC/LLNL old timers. If one is just a prospective employee, arguably they can select a different employer upfront correct?
Or once hired, can leave for greener pastures with their portable 401k, where under the UC pension, this may not have been as appealing.
I would say the UC management system was categorically better for employees working at LLNL, but that is history now.
UC, as a non-profit, public-service, research University was vastly superior in almost every respect to the corporate LLC parasites that now occupy the once highly esteemed management chairs of LASL and even LLNL. We can thank the Federal Government in their infinite wisdom on all matters “scientific” for that extremely dubious change. As a young person, if you have talent, you have much, much better options.
Besides pensions UC has many other benefits, lots of great science, more connections to the universities, a more intellectual environment, and service to the nation. In the old days LLNL was not just a job but a mission with a higher calling. Now it is just another job, it now has a more business mindset but not a business like Google or Microsoft but more like Walmart.
In any case it is LLC now so this is sort of a pointless discussion.
We can thank the Federal Government in their infinite wisdom...
11/14/2021 12:56 PM
We can thank Pete Domenici for caving to the "security failure" nincompoops, taking their side over his own constituents in voting for corporate takeover of the UC labs.
"Besides pensions UC has many other benefits, lots of great science, more connections to the universities, a more intellectual environment, and service to the nation. In the old days LLNL was not just a job but a mission with a higher calling. Now it is just another job, it now has a more business mindset but not a business like Google or Microsoft but more like Walmart.
In any case it is LLC now so this is sort of a pointless discussion"
I'm not sure this is a pointless discussion. LLNS is on an NNSA time table for contract renewal. Maybe the next contract bid to manage LLNL should be awarded to a non-profit. A non-profit could have tax-exempt status that would free up more funds to meet mission objectives, be awarded a smaller annual fee presumably, and perhaps attract an LLC that wants to provide a national service, rather than to capitalize on chum in the water ($$$). It won't be UC/LLNL again, but a positive step in that direction.
One thing I want to clear up is the discussion on pensions. The DOE got rid of pensions, not the LLCs. This has been going on for decades. The labs were actually the last DOE NNSA sites to lose new participation in pensions. Production sites lost it 10 years earlier in many cases. The pension liability in the DOE has been a topic of conversation in Forrestal since the 1980s.
I have no leanings either way and I do have a DOE pension.
I hope everyone on this blog realizes that UC has maintained majority control of the laboratories boards of directors and operating structures at Both LANL and LLNL through all iterations of the LLCs. Maybe it is a more corrupt UC under this contract structure but UC all the same.
A lean toward a return to non-profit DOE/NNSA contractors. According to the article below, the LLNS contract has options that could extend the contract as far out as 2026. (The discussion is not so “pointless”)
from 5-15-14
“Nuclear Weapons Complex Reform Could Mean Pay Cut For Contractors”
https://www.govexec.com/management/2014/05/nuclear-weapons-complex-reform-could-mean-pay-cut-contractors/84475/
Anonymous @ 11/15/2021 10:36 PM wrote “ I hope everyone on this blog realizes that UC has maintained majority control of the laboratories boards of directors and operating structures at Both LANL and LLNL through all iterations of the LLCs. Maybe it is a more corrupt UC under this contract structure but UC all the same.”
That’s an interesting bit of information that I wasn’t aware of, but even if UC has maintained formal majority control what good is that if practically speaking virtually all the signs of the old UC management system are gone? The working environment is completely different. The emphasis on high-quality science is gone and is now completely different. The UC retirement system is gone and has been replaced by something completely different. It is hardly still “UC all the same” now. Regardless of who has formal majority control, it is nothing like the old UC system.
-Doug
Good luck on trying to return to a non-profit model that existed before the contract change. Remember that Congress first demanded that the winner of the bid would accept the liability for issues that arose from mismanagement. UC had already stated before the bid process began that it could not put the UC system at such risk. Thus, the LLC model was put forth. UC had managed Livermore and Los Alamos for chump change before the contract change.
When the new model came in, UC's portion of the management fee jumped considerably from what it had been before the change. Good luck on trying to get UC to go back to that small fee.
The prestige and perfume of UC managing the labs has vaporized. The employees are no longer part of the UC system in retirement or benefit plans. One should remember that there was a considerable contingent of UC campuses that protested against those nasty labs being run by UC.
Would UC consider a bid for a non-profit model? If the money is good enough, maybe yes. It's the punchline for the old joke "We know what you are, we are now haggling over the price." But a return to the pittance they got before the change, probably not.
Would it be a return to the good old days? No, that ship sailed into an iceberg in 2007.
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