I have talked to many of those laid off and all have touching stories to tell.
Their committment to LLNL is evidenced by the shock of just beginning to realize that the LLNL community will no longer be part of their daily lives.
Here are some highlights that may encourage others to share. These stories provided needed context for the LLNS press releases that have so far shaped media coverage.
Some of those laid off may personally benefit from sharing stories. The more complete the picture of the layoffs, the better positioned everyone will be to correct any errors LLNS may have made in applying their own layoff policies, or in protecting certain classes of employees.
The language below does not even attempt to portray the depth of feeling behind the stories I was told. Instead, it is a dry factual account. Perhaps the dry language does convey the numbness so evident in many of those I spoke with. The emotions will come later.
1) At least one Directorate played by the seniority rules, but many, flaunted the rules. One man with 27 years at LLNL was let go, while others with less than ten years were retained - and all 21 at LLNL with the same 4 digit job class were in one Directorate. He was only 48, 18 months shy of qualifying to draw medical benefits during retirement. He, and several others in his situation, are looking for ways to get rehired or to challenge their layoffs.
2) Everyone I spoke with was over 45, most over 50. Several eye witnesses report that older employees appeared to have been disproportionately represented among the employees laid off in their areas - and at the exit center.
3) A couple of eyewitnesses suggested that African-American employees appeared to be disproportionately represented in those laid off from their areas.
4) Several reported late April and May transfers of employees with less seniority to other "business units" that were protected from the involuntary layoffs and selective reclassifications of employees early this year to new classes which were subsequently made ineligible for the voluntary separation package and protected from the involuntary package.
5) Reports are coming in from many job classes and Directorates the middle .2 job codes were decimated, while the more senior and more junior codes, the .1 and .3, were relatively protected. One woman with 38 years experience, was laid off and their were ten with her code!
6) Some managers, but only when asked, informed people of the business unit they were in, but none provided details on how many were in the unit and where the cut line was drawn.
Whether you were laid off or not, if you have a story to tell, please share it either publicly with the reporters below or privately by contacting the SPSE/UPTE office.
Public
Betsy Mason, Tri-Valley Herald – (925) 652-2797
Jim Dolan, SF Chronicle - jdoyle@sfchronicle.com
Private
SPSE/UPTE 925/449-4846 SPSE@SPSE.org
8 comments:
If all 545 people that got RIF'd this week and the other 1300 or so before them would contact these reporters they'd finally get the big picture and it may even help your class action law suit. You've got nothing to lose now.
All of the focus on the structured series is missing the fact that the 200 series layoffs were conducted in a completely arbitrary manner with absolutely no transparency. Many were less than 50 years old with almost, but not quite, 10 years in. Most were completely funded, and in some cases, project principal investigators. In some directorates, certain job classifications (i.e 230) were targeted for no apparent reason. The lives of these scientists and engineers have been ruined and changed forever. To my knowledge, no one in any management position was even touched. So we get rid of those bringing in the money and the tax base, while those feeding at the trough remain.
The entire affair has been sickening.
Were any managers laid off ?
If not, things are getting any better for those who are left but worse as overhead increases.
George Miller said "We're so expensive, we wouldn't hire ourselves..." I had naive hopes this meant the ISP would mean getting rid of swaths of management lard that suck up enormous taxes.
Right now, a typical FTE costs $500K, fully loaded. Instead, the management has grown with the LLNS transferees, and as far as I know ZERO managers are being RIF'd. Instead, scientists and technicians with specialized, unique skills have been banished. Let's also note that many of the technical staff RIF'd were fully supported and critical team members of well-funded projects (of course not NIF, though).
Consider that one manager making a gross $24K salary per month makes the equivalent of 3 technicians, and you can see that if we could have lost even just 40 useless managers, we could have saved 120 valuable, irreplaceable scientific and technical specialists. Tell me how many of our managers have any real scientific leadership? It is a VERY small fraction.
Let's face it, the ideas come from the staff scientists, the work is done by them and the technical support. With this ISP LLNL has cut off its legs, its enormous belly is dragging on the ground and looks like we'll be WAY more expensive than before! Nice work LLNS, wow, I thought "rocket scientists" and "weapons designers" (like George M) were the fabled math whizzes- well, taxpayers, it looks like the ones at LLNL can't be trusted to design effective warheads if they can't even run a LabPricer spreadsheet and realize that to balance their budget for now and for the future, THEY NEED TO CUT MANAGERS!
I have heard that the superintendent position will be closed out.They won't get rid of them though, just reassign them.I understand that it will go back to the way it was in the early days where supervisors are reportable directly to the division leader. The division leader will hold sway over salaries and promotions for the 500 and 300 series.It would be fine by me since some of the current crop of supes are of questionable ability. Know who I am talking about? I can think of two off the top of my head who have little or no technical acumen.At the same time a whole layer of pretty much useless management can get dumped.
Given a choice between a superintendent(who's only qualification is they were once a flunky like the rest of us) and an engineer (which most engineering division leaders are) I'll go with the engineer. They are far better qualified to evaluate performance based on technical merit than a twit superintendent.
The only downside is current supervisors are going to have to get dumped to make room for the newly displaced supes.
I'm a former LLNL employee who left the Lab last summer. I was not at all impressed with the incoming management team. They seemed quite unprofessional and rough around the edges -- cowboys with attitude. They were not the kind of people I wanted to work for, so I started looking for another job and luckily found one quickly -- before the contract changed.
Last Friday I received an e-mail from a former colleague who told me that 4 of our former colleagues were laid off. All are great people and good at their professions. All were over 50. Instead of being allowed to complete the last several years of their career with LLNL and then being sent off with a happy retirement part, they were given a very short time to pack up their personal belongings and then were escorted off-site with Livermore City police standing by -- as if they were common criminals! These are people who have worn badges displaying their Q clearance around their neck for decades. They were decent, loyal and capable employees. It makes my stomach turn. The treatment my former colleagues received was despicable.
On Friday evening I bought numerous local papers but did not find any coverage of the LLNL lay-offs. Do the local media not care about what happens to members of their community? The only story I did find was the sanitized corporate spin. No mention that these LLNS clowns are being paid way more than the former UC management or that this whole privatization experiment is costing tax payers much more money than the UC non profit. Additionally, they have not covered the cost to the taxpayers in terms of increased unemployment benefits that must be paid, the loss in revenue to local merchants, and the strong possibility that more local homes may be headed for foreclosure.
hey 8:36AM:
Betsy Mason is planning on doing an investigative report and will interview people soon. She, like many journalists, just reported what the Public Affairs Office told them to report. Betsy Mason is different!
May 25, 2008 6:01 PM
I have written her many times and she comes through. This time I don't think it will be anything that the PAO office forces her to print. Now is the time for all 1800-2000 people that were laid off to write and interview with her. Her e-mail address is on the sidebar. Please don't let her down.
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