Thursday, May 29, 2008
Fairly Done, For The General Population
So the list is out- looks like a total of 443 layoffs. As suspected, there were no managers RIF'ed. Of the scientists/technicians, many were EBA's off and on for years. However, some of the layoffs look suspiciously politically motivated. Probably a few good lawsuits in the making for those who were not EBA's much or at all. Especially where the "business unit" elimination story doesn't work and people were funded. It is actually good to see that they did lay off some "former manager" types who have lazed around for years pretending to do technical work- but only a few. If they would have been smart enough to use this opportunity to rid themselves of more of the real parasitic "nonesense title" people it might have been acceptable to lose a few good scientists in the mix. Instead, we still have every one of the ridiculous "directors at large", "external relations", "deputy xx", "program manager" and "special assistant" types.
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29 comments:
SPSE sent out the list via e-mail. It IS NOT 100% correct so YOU must check for yourself to see who and who is not gone for sure. Distribution by e-mail is enough.
From the current SPSE list, in terms of seniority, the percentages break down as follows:
0-5 yrs: 7.7% (34)
5-10 yrs: 38.7% (171)
10-15 yrs: 11.1% (49)
15-20 yrs: 13.8% (61)
20-25 yrs: 14.3% (63)
25-30 yrs: 7.7% (34)
30-35 yrs: 5.2% (23)
35-40 yrs: 1.6% (7)
Text of email sent by SPSE to LLNS employees...
Subject: Call for Demographic and Contact Information
Date: Thu, 29 May 2008
SPSE-UPTE has compiled a complete list of employees that were involuntarily separated last week, and has circulated it among members to check its accuracy. After preliminary analysis of this data we believe every laid-off employee should file a grievance or pursue a discrimination case against LLNS, LLC for failing to follow Laboratory policy and the law in determining who would be separated. In order to help with this, SPSE-UPTE needs demographic information for all the people who were sent home, along with contact information. This will allow us to communicate our progress in building a case. If you have the means to contact your laid-off friends and colleagues, please do so and ask them to call our office at (925) 449-4846 or e-mail us at spse@spse.org.
_ _ _ _ _
Society of Professionals, Scientists & Engineers
Local 11 University Professional and Technical Employees, CWA Local 9119
P.O. Box 1066, Livermore, CA 94551
(925) 449-4846 voice
(925) 449-4851 fax
Office Hours: Mon. - Fri. 8am to Noon
I hear the PAO office today is all pissed off that someone outside LLNL complied a list of the 440 people that were laid off last week and claims there are people on the list who are still employed. This is true.
I know of (one) employee that is still employed for now, but I'll bet shortly after their return they will be one of the 49 a month that will be let go. This means the list is only off by (one) more person.
Suggestion. Would that one person or maybe the few that are still employeed at LLNL please call SPSE and identify themselves. I'm sure SPSE will take you off the list. At that time the new list can be re-distributed.
I'd like to personally thank SPSE for their efforts since without them I wouldn't have known many of my friends got the shaft, some of which had over 30 years at LLNL and were model employees for the duration of their time.
If anyone sues LLNS I hope its the people who had flawless records and I hope each one of them get at least $1M after taxes for being wrongfully fired.
There are a few who've been totally abused.
SPSE, could you post the list on the blog so those of us no longer with LLNL can check on our past friends and coworkers. I do not get your emails and I checked your website but no info.
Thank you.
May 29, 2008 6:11 PM
I suggest you write SPSE and have it sent to your house via snail-mail.
Society of Professionals, Scientists & Engineers
Local 11 University Professional and Technical Employees, CWA Local 9119
P.O. Box 1066, Livermore, CA 94551
(925) 449-4846 voice
(925) 449-4851 fax
Office Hours: Mon. - Fri. 8am to Noon
I know of (one) employee that is still employed for now, but I'll bet shortly after their return they will be one of the 49 a month that will be let go. This means the list is only off by (one) more person.
You really don't understand. The layoffs last week were career indefinites. The 49/month rule is for Flex Term and SLO. It's a wonder you weren't laid off.
The word on the street is this. LLNS is looking for the person who first generated the list and are going to make an example of them so no one does this again. I hope whoever first sent this out was someone who got RIF'd. The better thing to do is take it home and pass it between parties off site or write SPSE and have them send it to your home e-mail address.
Anyone have the PAO e-mail that was sent out. I'd love to see their little note of warning. Please post on the blog.
I know of at least one manager that was let go.
May 29, 2008 7:11 PM
That's good news but Oct 1st is right around the corner.
"...I'd like to personally thank SPSE for their efforts since without them I wouldn't have known many of my friends got the shaft.."
I AGREE. Been here 20 years and can't even send a card of condolence. Are we some kind of Argentine junta? Management is so afraid of its own shadow, it isn't acting rationally. I think it is finally dawning on them that they are failing.
How do we get business done without this information? We're supposed to f----g guess who supports us?
They don't deserve the employees they supposedly lead.
Every day now, we are one day closer to a professional union shop. Management ineptitude is seeing to that. No need to hurry, it will be a landslide when it inevitably happens.
Whatever silliness a Jimmy Hoffa legacy brings, it would be an improvement on George Miller's stooges. At least you'd know Hoffa was on your side. Miller has learned too much from Moses but is not clever enough to pull it off.
".... It's a wonder you weren't laid off..."
forgive me, wise ass.
with 55,000 pages of regulations and policies and 500 managers with 501 interpretations, NOBODY GETS IT ALL RIGHT. that nnsa thinks we could even begin to understand the unfathomable morass of regulations foisted on us surprises the piss out of me.
So let ye without sin cast the first hypocrisy.
This place has changed substantially. The three-page resignation letter that I read only began to detail what is really wrong with this place.
It has changed so fundamentally from an open environment, one of mutual trust and support, and light-handed senior management to a place of dumbness, heavy-handed yet curiously incompetent senior management, maltreatment, and behavior that thwarts trust. It has beome a crappy place to work that Tarter and Mara wouldn't recognize.
I am slowly coming to believe that those who were laid off will soon consider themselves the fortunate ones.
Lawrence's LLNL is no more.
It should be renamed the FUBARNL
I don't see that SPSE has any obligation to get it precisely right. They can only help with educated guesses.
These appear to be more accurate than Fat George's estimates of no layoffs the first year, or Liar Psybullshit's "substantially equivalent" benefits or Lovely Lynn Soderstrom's memorable description of transition benefits.
The only people who can get it exactly right are FUBARNL management and they are laughably quiet on the subject.
So they will be doing a nationwide search for an Engineering AD.
Look for another failure, since no manager hired from the outside into a senior management position without prior experience at LLNL has ever succeeded.
Hope springs eternal. They will be recruiting again from the new Steven Bechtel government mismanagement program at Second City's Three Stooges School of Management.
May 29, 2008 7:11 PM
"You really don't understand. The layoffs last week were career indefinites. The 49/month rule is for Flex Term and SLO. It's a wonder you weren't laid off."
So your saying FTE don't have to fear the same lay offs in FY-09?
Do you honestly think the goal of LLNS is to keep 6000 FTE's on the pay roll with retirement entitlements when they can fire them early and save billions, while at the same time hire contract slave labor and out source your job. The faster they can dump your butt and get your take home pay to be less than you planned. the better ULM will be in the long run. If they can dump you before your 50 you get nothing and if your job can be out-sourced to India, it will be.
NO! I don't believe FTE's are safe and secure and I don't believe it's over by a long shot.
This is a FOR PROFIT business and profit to LLNS means one thing. Geting rid of people, get good DOE EVALs and pocket $80M a year for doing so. It has nothing to do with bringing in work to LLNL. That's not their job.
May 30, 2008 6:08 AM,
where did you got to business school? Because you obviously have no clue how a business works. Hint, no ability to get work done equals business go bye bye. And guess what, it takes people to get work done. Preferably very highly qualified and motivated people.
Of course there is an implicit assumption that LLNS ULM is competent enough to understand this fundamental rule of business. Time will tell on that one.
May 30, 2008 6:29 AM
There is no real work to do at LLNL that is of national interest and non of it solves today problems or the current crisis we are in.
The goal is to DOWN SIZE and B/Rechtel should have LLNL down by 50% by the end of the first two years. That's the 18 months George was talking about. It also translates into a staff of more than 4000- 4500 people. As weapons funding go wayside so will LLNL population. Got it?
As far as lots of work to do at LLNL could you please tell us where all this work is other than NIF. Come on, tell us where all the work is and where those posting are. I and many others want to see them. tell us who in the heck wants to give us work. What fool would pay $400K per person when they can go outside and get it done for about 25% of the cost .
May 30, 2008 7:12 AM,
Keep selling that snake oil if it makes you feel good. I just hope you don't actually believe it's true, because it isn't.
I have some experience with those 25% solutions. And they are only solutions in the sense that you can give them money and they'll smile a lot, give half assed power point presentations and produce nothing of value in the end. LLNL for all its faults gets stuff done and people in important places know that.
"I just hope you don't actually believe it's true, because it isn't."
I have "zero" faith in LLNS and do in fact believe their days are done. As one poster said, LLNL does nothing of national value that will solve todays energy crisis and they never will. By the time they actually make something that works, if ever, it will be far to late for everyone. I don't give a hoot about weapons simply because I know that what we have is far more than we need and they'll work very well for decades to come with no real issues that need immediate attention. What I care about is energy, getting off oil,coal or anything that ruins the environment or displaces wildlife. I am also against further drilling on land or sea to solve the problem. I am also against land based nuclear power plants. The nation needs to be focused on the energy crisis not how to destroy themselves in one big bang. LLNL needs to shift they mission to something useful but in reality I believe it to little to late. I also have no faith in out leader in Washington. They have no guts to do anything right unless it puts money in the oil companies pocket.all that could save us now would be a leader who would concentrate on our energy crisis and he or she would have to implement orders to do so now without seeking approval from the congress or the senate. They are just obstacles in the way of success as are most of the CEO's getting rich at the working class expense.
"As one poster said, LLNL does nothing of national value that will solve todays energy crisis and they never will. "
Really? How long have you been at the lab? Because I recall LLNL being very heavily into alternative fuels in the past. I also recall somebody posting in another thread that there are already efforts under way to build the labs presence in this area.
As for the expertise, some of it is already in house and the rest can be recruited if the work does in fact come in.
While it is true that the core of LLNL's work has been weapons it is also true that the lab has gone through many transformations over the course of its fifty plus year history. LLNL has always been primarily an organization that could solve highly complex and diverse problems. It still is and it will likely continue to be.
Less of the doom and gloom and more "how the expletive are we going to extricate ourselves from this mess" would be nice. Because there are positive paths forward. They will not however be found in the midst of narcissistic self pity and projection.
" Because I recall LLNL being very heavily into alternative fuels in the past."
And you failed. The only project at the lab now that worthwhile is the hydrogen car and even that is so far behind BMW and HONDA it isn't funny. They've got theirs on the market and being tested in LA, where is LLNL's super dooper accomplishments in those areas. Where are the improved solar cells. Where are the hydrogen producing devices that are non-nuclear. Just where is anything that LLNL has done to take care of todays problems. You won't find any and that is why LLNL is slowly going to die. The nation needs results and they needed them yesterday. Now the people of America will suffer because of our lack of foresight and putting our effort into the wrong devices, literally. That's not doom and gloom as some people say, IT'S FACT and that's hard for some people to deal with as is reality. REALITY is REALITY
May 30, 2008 9:02 AM
The "reality" is, it's not all good and the nation is on a downward spiral out of control or maybe I should say on a controled spiral just the way the rich want it to be. All that could save America now is a revolution or we get someone that is not a democrat or republican in the whitehouse that will make a corrections for the good of the people and I'm not talking social program but large multi-billion dollar infrastructures that will not only solve the energy crisis but employee people with good wages for the next 50-100 years. Anything short of that and we're finished..
6:08 said:
"And guess what, it takes people to get work done. Preferably very highly qualified and motivated people."
I know this won't be popular but it must be said. Yes, some employees who fit this category were unfairly RIF'd. They deserve better and I hope justice is served. But there were also employees RIF'd who have worked at the lab for years who were NOT highly qualified and motivated people; they would have not lasted this long anywhere else. Now SPSE is encouraging EVERYONE to file grievances without knowing which ones would be justified, which is exactly why I have no desire to join.
May 30, 2008 11:55 PM
Only the ones who know that have a great employment record should sue the he-- out of LLNS and take their entire $80M managment fee from them next year even if that means LLNS has to fire more people. Go for it. I'd love to see these pukes taken down big time. Maybe the next time they'll thin before they act. I hope they have to split the $80M between the few good ones that got canned.
" All that could save America now is a revolution "
A revolution for what. If you dont like it, vote in someone else. We got ourselves into this mess.
A revolution will just force what is left of the corporations overseas. Then what do we do, make corn baskets for a living?
The only way out of this is to educate ourselves and our children so we can compete on a global scale.
for 5/29 7:18 P.M.
here is the pao email text
To: E-Line {e-line@lists.llnl.gov}
From: Public Affairs Office pao@llnl.gov>
Subject: Unofficial ISP list circulating
ender: listmaster@llnl.gov
E-line: Unofficial ISP list circulating
The Laboratory has received several complaints about a possible list
circulating via Lab e-mail with names of employees reportedly
released last week through the Involuntary Separation Program (ISP).
The list is causing embarrassment for people purported to have been
released who, in fact, were not. The Laboratory has not and will not
release a list because such a release violates personal privacy and
is not respectful of our colleagues.
"The Laboratory has not and will not
release a list because such a release violates personal privacy and
is not respectful of our colleagues"
But they believe the way they treated us, and the 440+ was fair? I believe if the LLNS system felt like being fair, they would have given those RIF'd the full 60 days of pay in leu of notification, instead of telling 3200 people to be afraid, very afraid for the next 30 days while they compiled the list, and then changed the total by reducing the number by 100...WHOO-HOO, who also have the 30 days to worry now, all 500 of them, knowing one in five will go the same way the tru-blue 440 were let go.
Everything LLNS has done since Oct 1st is backhanded, suspicious and deceitful,IMHO, none of which I felt in my 25+ years of service under the University of California, LLL and later LLNL.
The real issue is not the $45 million contract, which I believe UC waived any money, it is the perks of $46.5 million the company will get if they do the laundry list NNSA has given them, and with a 75% passing grade required, at that. Their #1 mission is to meet the goals of the list, at any expense, which I fear was started last Thursday. I felt sick to my stomach when a colleague was escorted out the gate, but when I heard 3 GOOD friends, with more than 30 years service EACH were also escorted out the door, the feeling one gets when they hear a close friend/ relative died is the best I can describe my feelings.
We lucky employee's ( maybe unlucky) need to try and get back in the mood to do real science, which it seems hasn't really been affected on my level, but I can't imagine upper managment, which is still LLNL and mostly UC-TCP2 employee's who will be gone in less than 5 years, can get back in the groove after this blow at the knee's to 20% of mostly good, hard working dedicated workers who USED to love their jobs, and LLNL.
The curtain is closing, and as stated in 5 years the majority of those that know what UC's influence was on our work will be a distant memory, and the LLNS managment style will be able to run us like they wish they could now. Sorry George, I believe you too had the wool pulled over your eyes, but thanks for stepping up to the plate to try and keep all things UC on the table. At least one TCP2 employee thinks you probably tried to keep the UC -like environment, because I am sure you know if that goes away, we are surely doomed.
Time to rest the eyes, I have a long day at work tomorrow, remembering the lost soles, as a friend and I say, friends for life. Oh yes, work also, but my mind seems pre-occupied since managment seems to think we need a 2 week cooling-down period before we forget our friends are gone...Be very careful for these 2 weeks, anyone making a mistake may find the new era of managment has taken over, and like NIF they will not allow injuries to taint their record, regardless of the cost.
No way man, I need another 6 years before I forget what you did to all of us. Bitter ?, maybe, but more likely cautious for good reason. This is like a death penalty period, the only difference is when our alloted TIME is up, which hopefully we control, we will be in the "LIFE period, where we can again talk of the good times we had, prior to the takeover.
UC been berry berry good to us, LLNS is the grinch. If it were not for the retiree medical UC gave us, many would leave this pit and work for a few years at a reduced pay somewhere we are wanted. Friends and good memories are all we have left, and many of those are gone.
6 more to go, guess who I am... wait, maybe 30% of the lab.....?
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