How does Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), influence LLNS hiring policies, and Affirmative Action underutilization criteria with respect to transgender new hires or existing employees? Are credential and experience requirements for scientific and engineering positions being maintained?
The video link below talks about Bud Light and Target’s business decisions of late, and the loss of tens of billions of dollars in market share rooted (he believes) in relatively new ESG requirements.
“The Fall of Bud Light: What Went Wrong?”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O6cAKYPIOhY
19 comments:
This whole thing about Anheuser-Busch is really strange -- I think their earnings came out just a few hours ago, and the stock was actually up. They are a worldwide company, the largest beer company in the world, based in Belgium I believe, and other geographical areas are doing great, offsetting most of the issues in North America. Also about a third of the North American losses are due to the coupons and promotions, which will probably go away once people become used to drinking their beers again due to its cheap price.
It certainly could have some impact I think, over the long term, that there is a controversy, but even that is somewhat uncertain. Some workers are hurt as you know, and workers at other beer companies could benefit, and so on.
I switched to Coors, did that effect howLLNL hires?
Frankly, I think the beer advertisement was strange, and the boycott is strange too. Would anyone care if Hunter Biden or Stormy Daniels were drinking Bud Light? Why not go on drinking the beer if you feel like it, and if someone asks you in a bar why, you can tell them that. And its certainly cheaper at stores now, I just bought a case myself.
It could be this is more of an opportunity, as the labs can hire good people who were unhappy or discriminated against somewhere else, if it provides a good environment. There is a history of things like that happening, where the government provides opportunities for various groups and the country as a whole benefits. It's also reasonable to expect professional behavior from anyone who might be unhappy with this, I would think, and to deal with various situations that arise according to that.
Certainly broadening the pool of applicants might actually improve quality as I've mentioned, although yes it could also lower quality if it becomes a sort of reverse discrimination. Along those lines, is there evidence certain groups are over-represented that would support that? Also if certain groups are underrepresented, isn't that partly because there are few qualified applicants in those groups? It might not be a case of discrimination in that regard, if they freely chose to do something else, which could perhaps even be more rewarding from a personal perspective.
Is the Bud Light thing a sort of Clockwork Orange thing where people stop drinking? Addiction is a huge problem as you know, perhaps AI could generate some "advertisements" of this nature that would cure many people, although it might make them afraid of LGBTQ people, and only work on Republicans.
Does the Questionnaire for National Security Positions (QNSP) regarding sexual preferences/lifestyle/gender identity etc. map well or is it in reasonable agreement with the welcoming of transgender employees at LLNL?
Getting back on topic…
The biggest problem with LLNS is the ability to get skilled people trained and willing to work aligned with the work.
Seems to be quite a bit of skills personal sidelined from actually working, while rolling out the red carpet for those unskilled and using this as a resume stepping stone.
In the end nobody wins
I am not sure about QNSP but I do know it is the case that transgender individuals often have a variety of issues related to whatever discrimination they have faced, and adaptation to changes, this could be true for various other groups as well. There would have to be a way to understand the actual risk to security, in each individual case, and of course if one didn't wish to discriminate they might ideally be hired and given uncleared or less sensitive work. This would also remove a lot of the drama about any given decision.
Perhaps in particular it is somehow correlated with risk, but there is not any causation, and the type of discrimination or profiling that judges an entire group together, is often problematic as you know, it could be related to racism or hatred of certain religions, ethnicities, skin colors, etc, immigrants, and so on.
“Seems to be quite a bit of skills personal sidelined from actually working, while rolling out the red carpet for those unskilled and using this as a resume stepping stone.”
Not so unfortunate for the un-credentialed “stepping stone” LLNL hired “underutilized” beneficiary. Isn’t this correct Randy Pico? Had you completed an AS degree in Electronics Technology comparable to other non-Native American LLNL new hires at the time BEFORE you were hired at UC/LLNL Randy? No.
In the present, we can only hope LGBTQ hires at LLNL, will not simply be hired to support an OFCCP AAP quota over college credential requirements of ones new hire peers. Time will tell.
Unjustifiable LLNL new hires and LLNL promotions driven by AAP quotas and virtue signaling, can lead to a sense of workplace entitlement, with lingering moral hazard throughout the subjects LLNL career. Such a person can believe workplace guidelines, rules, and personal conduct, don’t apply to them, and conduct themselves believing they have unspoken LLNL approved immunity from consequence.
I think the transgender movement and the ideas behind it are pretty complicated, but it doesn't really concern me much. As you know there are very strange ideas floating around now, about people "marrying robots" and so forth at least this is a human thing. And if that sounds silly to you, the availability of unlimited free porn to everyone which has come about over the last 20 years or so is essentially the same thing.
And in an almost complete analogy, there is of course a complex story behind the use of legal and illegal drugs. People have introduced ideas about directly connecting the brain to a computer or subjecting it to various sorts of treatments, that are much more concerning (like the marrying robots idea). At the same time, of course, the availability of computing and communications technologies are in fact now altering and destroying mental health by feeding in unlimited information so essentially the same thing has already happened.
I do not think we should roll back history, or that would even be possible, but surely as scientists it might make sense to have an accurate view of the real world that exists around us. The fact is that it is sort of a hypocrisy to single out transgender, or even drug users perhaps in some cases, when most of our population is now engaged in related things that are much worse, as I mentioned in both cases we are doing essentially the same thing, as the issues on the horizon that worry people.
Certainly the current environment does pose security risks as you know, but I'm not sure profiling certain groups is an answer. And when there is a question about someone tying that to employment or compensation through a need for credentials, also I would think, could create a bunch of problems when there is a mandate to not discriminate.
Engineering seems to be hiring quite a few people right out of school and then they move on in a couple years to someplace else.
Mid and end career folks getting pushed out and disengaged at the same time.
Employee attrition could be a concern, I think, since Livermore seems to pay less than Silicon Valley for a lot of jobs, and having a stable job is part of what attracts people. There are also more opportunities for advancement to very high pay in industry, the lottery ticket of stock options, and the fact that higher earnings lets you buy property. And I would assume, other national labs or employers are in low tax jurisdictions, where it is less expensive to live as well.
While jobs in silicon valley are often short-lived, of course, there are many employers in close proximity, of course, too, one reason why that ecosystem works, also I believe California does generally not allow non-compete clauses of course, as many other states do -- in some cases even applying these to restaurant workers or people who walk dogs, preventing them from working at another dog-walking company.
Certainly there could be a positive aspect that many people do believe in the mission otherwise they would leave, but I would imagine this also discriminates against anyone from a less fortunate background or with student debt, which could include various minority groups that have historically been faced with discrimination.
“Employee attrition could be a concern, I think, since Livermore seems to pay less than Silicon Valley for a lot of jobs, and having a stable job is part of what attracts people. “
Back in the UC/LLNL days (pre-LLNS), job stability, benefits, and work environment, reasonably offset the attraction of higher Silicon Valley $$$ salaries. Now that more than 50% of LLNS employees are on TCP2 have portable 401ks, it doesn’t take much for them to consider greener pastures.
One BIG reason is job stability almost immediately went out the window when LLNS took over. Numbering in the hundreds, so called “career indefinite” employees were marched out the gate.
The second BIG loss of job stability event occurred in 2012-2013, when despite the documented and practiced pattern of laying off supplemental labor first policy to save/buffer “career indefinite” jobs (as you were told during your “career indefinite interviews), NIF dumped dozens of “career indefinite” employees where they instantly became 3rd tier employees with lipstick ETA and EBA labels. Some of these employees were quietly fired, while others took demotions, salary cuts, and “performance” based pay raise reductions.
LLNS elected to not walk the talk and welched on their job security pledges and former practices at best. At worst, LLNS breached a highly valued employer/employee contract.
So unfortunately, job stability and working in good faith practices at LLNL are defunct relics of the past.
Download the lab's Org chart. See that title of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity & Accountability, right below the position of Chief Human Resources Officer, that's a clue to the lab's commitment to the lab's hiring practices. It's that or a very high profile (and undoubtedly highly compensated) place holder to get ESG/DEI/WOKE brownie points.
Yes I think the history of those years is well known to everyone for the 5:47 poster. The question though is what could the national labs do now to improve working environments, attract good people or candidates that are minorities or in other categories such as trans. Everyone knows the government has serious fiscal problems but the labs missions and projects are mostly deserving of being funded. So working within vary real constraints how can the overall outcome to improved?
The contract to manage LLNL is coming up, therefore “defunct relics of the past” or the for-profit LLNS track record, still has value today in determining the best contractor to manage LLNL in the future. Maybe a non-profit contractor next time.
“Download the lab's Org chart. See that title of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity & Accountability, right below the position of Chief Human Resources Officer, that's a clue to the lab's commitment to the lab's hiring practices.”
Org Charts? Really? Back in 2008, well over 100 dedicated LLNS Career Indefinite Employees (FTE) were laid off in mass. Afterwards, some of them were able to hire back with LLNS, but permanently lost their pre-lay off TCP1 pension option. Gone.
Director George Miller was a “deer in the headlights”, fully onboard with that mass layoff, or somewhere in between…
We had “Org Charts” and “virtue signaling” talking points back in 2008 too, and the Director was at its designed for public consumption, apex. Follow the money, not a LLNS “Org-Chart”.
By the way Target had pretty good earnings too yesterday -- although sales were down slightly.
The layoffs were really bad, I recall, though as you know people whose work is not funded by the government are seemingly angry at those who are, who have more secure jobs, and better working conditions. This seems to be part of the backlash against the so-called "deep state" and "swamp" as well as teachers unions and so forth. Some people were evidently even angry about the pandemic response, especially business owners and people ordered not to work, and this seems to have led to the attempt to overthrow our government.
I would assume, the government might need to mistreat people somewhat, so as not to encourage an anti-government backlash among the actual taxpayers who are engaged in the more capitalist system with its business cycles and so on. They should still be able to attract a competitive workforce, as long as conditions at the labs are still better than the outside world.
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