I'd say this sums up LLNL as it is today fairly well. Let me introduce to you a dead on assessment of the times behind the one square mile fence-line. LLNL The Factual Story
By the way. These's also a survey floating around the LLNL e-mail system asking for your opinion about what it's like to work at various nuclear weapons related complexes. May I suggest you take the survey and be honest about your feelings of how things are being run, your management and just what do you want LLNL's mission to be. They've asked for your opionion. Now's the time to let it rip and unload all that you've been holding back.
Contact them at Nuclear Deterrent Survey
Since NNSA has refused to post your comments about the 3161, you've once again been given a chance to express you likes and dismays. Don't miss this opportunity.
14 comments:
Something to be pointed out to those conducting this survey - the creation of NNSA was a huge mistake, which lead directly to NNSA's approach for bidding "its" national lab contracts as compared to they way DOE's Office of Science handled "its" national labs.
Remember that Congress directed that "all" national lab contracts go out to bid, but it was NNSA's approach (separate legal entity from parent corporations and a separate retirement system) that lead to the creation of LLNS and lab employees losing their UC public employment. If LLNL and LANL had still been under DOE, there would have been no way for DOE under its contracting rules to treat us different from LBNL when it came to contracts. NNSA being a semi-independent entity was allowed by DOE to wreck its vengeance on the "arrogant" employees at "its" national labs. NNSA just wants the contractor employees at its labs to be no more than slaves on its plantation. Can you say "Yessa Master Boss NNSA...I be'sa coming to do you work like a good boy... just don't let that mean old overseer LLNS'a whip me no more..."
SO when you blast away in your survey responses, be sure to aim them squarely at NNSA.
SPSE-UPTE SENTINEL, VOLUME 36:ISSUE 1: MARCH 2008 PAGE 11
Bye-Bye TCP1?
Jeff Colvin, UPTE Representative (with a little help form his friends)
Back when we were trying to decide between TCP1 (the pension plan) and TCP2 (the 401k savings plan with employer contributions) it became clear that, like in all financial investment decisions, the trade-off was between long-term return and risk.
Specifically, for most people a pension like TCP1 provides a better long-term benefit at retirement. Half of us, however, considered that the risk of TCP1 being substantially changed or eliminated in the long-term was unacceptably high.
The UCRP asset transfer from UCRP to TCP1 recently approved by the UC Board of Regents has just substantially increased that risk.
Here is the real story that neither UC nor LLNS has told you.
As we have documented in past Sentinel articles¹, one motivation for privatizing the Lab was to give DOE an opportunity to recoup what they considered “their” surplus in UCRP.
DOE believes that the fact that UCRP has been overfunded since the early 90s (employees have not had to contribute to it since then) is because they paid too much into it, and they have been determined to get their money back.
Indeed, they have made several efforts over the past few years to force their contractors to discontinue pension plans altogether.
They did this via several aborted attempts to implement a new regulation that stops reimbursement of their
contractors for pension expenses.²
They even tried to use the management contract transition to achieve this long-sought goal; the original Request for Proposals for the LANL contract did not include a pension plan at all. It got into the final draft only after intense lobbying by UPTE.
So, now the asset transfer presents yet another opportunity for DOE to get its “surplus” back.
How are they doing this? They are doing it through sleight-of-hand by mixing units when they calculate the UCRP asset split.
This is the split of assets in the LLNL segment of UCRP between funds that stay in UCRP (the LLNL retained segment) to cover the obligations to current retirees and UCRP-inactive employees (those who chose TCP2), and funds transferred to LLNS TCP1.
Specifically, they mix market value with actuarial value in the calculation. The easiest way to think of this is that they equate the liabilities of the LLNL retained segment with their market value (the value at a particular point in time) instead of their actuarial value (the value based on a five-year running average of investment return).
They did the same calculation for the UCRP-LANS asset split at the time of the Los Alamos transition, but back then there was little difference between market value and actuarial value. For us, on the other hand, there is a big difference. The market was at an all-time high on October 1, our transition date. The actuarial value of the LLNL retained segment is much less.
The bottom line is that the LLNL retained segment of UCRP starts out about 10% underfunded (contrary to what both UC and LLNS are telling us), and TCP1 starts out way overfunded, by about $420M.
Why would UC agree to this? UC does not need to worry, because the asset transfer agreement also obligates DOE to keep the LLNL retained segment funded at 100%. If it is underfunded, DOE has seven years (exactly the term of the DOE-LLNS contract) to bring it up to full funding.
Indeed, the “contingency” $75M that the agreement calls for to be transferred back to UC simply covers the first year or so of the required DOE payment to UC.
What happens after this first year?
It seems clear where DOE intends to get the money to keep the LLNL retained segment of UCRP fully funded: right out of the TCP1 surplus.
Indeed, it will be much easier for them to get the whole surplus from LLNS than it was to get any of it from UC.
One way they can do this is to force LLNS to do what IBM and many other big companies have done—discontinue the pension plan and convert its assets into a cash value account for each enrolled employee.
If they do this when there is a surplus, the company can then pocket the surplus (yes, this is legal).
In our case, the surplus would go to DOE, as required by the LLNS/NNSA contract to manage the Laboratory.4 If LLNS management tries to resist pressure to discontinue TCP1, then DOE always has the option of simply cutting the Lab budget by the amount they need to pay to UC.
LLNS manage¬ment will inevitably face the choice between discontinuing TCP1 and doing more layoffs to accommodate budget cuts. In either case, we, the employees, lose.
We believe that starting with an asset split that is so far out of balance is just an invitation to trouble.
We call upon LLNS management to do the right thing and join us in advocating for a more equitable split before the scheduled April 1transfer date.
See the September 2007 issue at www.spse.org/publications.htm DOE Notice 351.1, issued April 27, 2006, and then later suspended. More information can be found at http://management.energy.gov/request_for_comments.htm. You can do your own calculation from the numbers presented in the report of UC’s actuaries, The Segal Company, to the UC Board of Regents; we have posted it on our website: http://www.spse.org/Segal_20071114_c8attach1.pdf 4See Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344, Section H-35(e)(10)(ii) at http://www.doeal.gov/llnlCompetition/NewContract.htm
Published by SPSE-UPTE ♦ P.O. Box 1066, Livermore CA 94551 ♦ (925) 449-4846 ♦ spse@spse.org ♦ www.spse.org
So when you blast away in your survey responses, be sure to aim them squarely at NNSA.
March 6, 2008 6:10 PM
The one problems with the survey is it doesn't specifically ask you is you're evaluating LLNS or the directorate you are working in. I have asked that this be corrected and that the survey be given over again since the answers would be entirely different. May I suggest you write the firm that asking these questions and make them understand how critical this is. I did however take an opportunity to write what I was feeling in the spaces where it was allowed, both good and bad. They asked. They received.
You are not going to get everyone to give their true opinion! Some people no matter how disgusted will not voice their real opinion. They are scared of their own shadow; they fear LLNS knows who they are! Come on people, you know who you are; you will always be slaves if you dont speak up!
I doubt that just letting it rip is really that effective. It's relatively easy to discount data points that are biased. If everybody did give the new company zeroes across the board then you can't dimiss those points, but you also don't accomplish any meaningful feedback.
I look at it as follows: Our job is to provide honest, thoughtful information. The bureaucrats will most likely ignore or misuse this information, but that's not something we could or should be in control of.
When we let ourselves violate this moral stance, then our advice and concerns get perceived as having a hidden agenda or whining. I know that it is difficult to keep a stiff upper lip and keep providing honest assessments while others get away with lying, but in the long run, it does win out. Anybody who has tried to explain to NNSA why our approach at LLNL is better than the too-good-to-be-true promises from another laboratory (and I'm not talking about LANL) can relate to the frustration.
What I wish is that they had asked a time-dependent series of questions. For instance, how did your management rate on these scales 5 years ago? What about 2 years ago? What about now? I think that if people really tallied up all of the stuff that has gone away in the last few years (lab pool, CRC, Time Zone, etc.), then we would see that things are trending toward a lower standard. Toss in the benefits melodrama, and we have given up a lot, both personally and professionally.
We still have things pretty good at the lab, but not great. I doubt that a lab that seeks to be 105% of the market average has its best days ahead. I filled out the survey with what I perceived to be truthful answers. Will that help? Maybe not, but it probably will not hurt. I guess that's the best I can give them.
March 6, 2008 8:40 PM
An now you know why America is going to heck in a hand basket. The people with the good ideas who should express their opinions don't, while the ones with the stupid ideas do; and guess who gets their way at your expense? This is what tolerance, compassion, understanding, diversity and global economics have gotten you. These are fine qualities _in moderation_ but when they affect your earnings and livelihood all bets are off, the gloves are on and the battle has only begun. Well at least by those with a backbone.
yep, get in there and shoot your mouth off. Do you honestly think they care about your opinion? This is just a way of gauging the mood at the lab and determining who is a team player.I wouldn't do it if I were you.
Lab management is encouraging a cross-section of Laboratory employees to participate in a survey by the Defense Science Board’s Task Force on Nuclear Deterrent Skills. The survey titled “Nuclear Deterrent Workforce Survey,” originally was sent to approximately 3,000 Lab employees last month.
The deadline to submit the survey is March 14. The board intends to send another reminder to employees today about the survey. Laboratory officials have verified the legitimacy of the survey.
To date, only a small number of employees have participated in the survey. In order for the survey to be validated, more employees need to participate. Senior managers are encourageing employees to take a few minutes out of their work schedules and fill out the survey.
March 7, 2008 6:55 AM
I hope like heck the rest of the country doesn't think like you. We use to call people like that guttless wonders and other things but guttless will do. Are you other 6900 people going to kowtow too. If you do you are as worthless as he is.
Too many trolls on this forum.
5:29 PM is right on the mark. This survey is the best opportunity we'll have any time soon to voice our views of the deteriorating working conditions and environment at the Lab. While LLNS and NNSA could care less what employees think - at least this survey gives us a small channel to voice opinions. So if you think things are great at the lab, say so... or if you think one of the top research facilities in the world has gone into the toilet, tell them that... but quit being a lemming.
March 7, 2008 5:29 PM
Thanks for making my point. By the way, please include your name when you post your response to the survey on this blog. After all, you didn't hesitate to give LLNS your name when you submitted your survey to them? So please step forward and identify yourself. After all YOU are the courageous champion of all that is good and righteous in America. We anxiously await your post.
"By the way, please include your name when you post your response to the survey on this blog. After all, you didn't hesitate to give LLNS your name when you submitted your survey to them?"
And is this supposed to scare me. I knew darn well when the survey that was sent to my LLNL e-mail address with a password to get in it was going to point directly at me and what I said. Do I care.
If ULM doesn't have respect for people who tell it like it is, then "they" have a problem, not me. I look forward to a meeting with Russo, Miller and Moses. Any time those boys want to invite me to 111 to have a one on one and are willing to listen I will gladly take them up on the invitation. How many of you would be wiling to accept the invite and then say what you have on your mind. If you don't have the gonads to talk one on one with ULM when asked, then I would hope you would be the first one's out the gate on the ISP. This country needs people with a spine not annelids and shameful people who hide behind their mammas skirts. Your political correctness and fear to speak up will only cause you to be stepped on for your entire life. I will never be stepped on. When I've had enough, I will say what needs to be said.
My only suggestion if you get a one on one with Miller and Russo is to take your supervisor with you. Maybe you'll both learn something and just maybe ULM will too. Now take the darn survey and speak your mind. If you can do that then don't complain when they walk the dog on your butt.
Stop being such a bunch of sissy's.
So as you can see there is no need for me to put my name on the blog. ULM already knows who I am and what I think both good and bad.What they chose to do wuith it is their choice.
March 8, 2008 5:44 PM
No you will be walked on, just not near so much as those who are laying (lying?) down
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