LLNL - The True Story -

Contributed anonymously: Complaint resolution form in DOC format From SPSE today... DEADLINE FAST APPROACHING TO CHALLENGE YOUR LAYOFF --- PLEASE READ THIS SPSE-UPTE has been gathering demographic information from the Lab employees laid off during the week of May 19th. Reviewing this information and LLNS policy, we believe that most of the people affected have justification to file grievances or discrimination complaints. They are as follows: 1. A formal grievance to LLNS claiming violation of LLNS layoff policy in combination with labor or case law. In determining order of layoff, companies are allowed to make exceptions to inverse seniority and skip over less senior employees only if they possess unique skills or abilities that do not exist elsewhere in the company. Generally, labor boards and the courts have found that instances of skipping should not amount to more than 10% of a workforce. LLNS excluded around 40% of its employees from the layoff pool. This is clearly far mor...

Anonymously contributed: How come you didn't hear anything about this at Ed Moses all hands meeting today and did you notice that George hasn't said a word either? Full article

article

From a blog called the "Chronicle of higher education" More important than the article itself are the comments that follow. Article

Well, if people actually respond to this post, I'll try to convince Scooby that this BLOG deserves to survive. Ok, that's not exactly true, but is one of the facts. Me, I've mostly been beat into submission. I guess that I'm just so tired of the BS that we've put up with for so long. Georgie really does not have a clue as to what is actually going on, and really never should have been put in a ULM position (don't get me wrong, he's a GREAT physicistst, but a lously manager. In-so-far-as our current management goes, they're going to have to kill or at least seriously hurt someone before they realize what they are doing - but no one will admit to that (dead or not). Yes, I'm VERY happy that I still have a job. This BLOG is our only outlet - please support it. It is Scooby's BLOG and we need to support him/her. I'm sure that ULM does look at this BLOG and you as the reader have a chance to post with no worries about reprucussions. We will prote...

From the LANL BLOG: See what LANL people are saying about that

The good news is LLNS or ULM is looking at people SKA's and overall performance in conjunction with the needs of the company. This to me means those who are marginal or worse will be gone very shortly probally starting on Oct 1st, 2009. This may or may not be the case with all of those who got laid off, however I suspect those who were very good employees like the ones I know who did get laid off simply meant they were in jobs that LLNS has no intention of ever supporting or they were jobs LLNS has intentions of out-sourcing on an AS NEEDED contract basis. Yes, this means there will be more cleaning of the house which consequently means more people will lose their jobs over the next 18 months. Take a look at yourself and ask yourself a question. Am I in a service oriented organization whose job could be done by a firm outside LLNL on a contact basis or via the Internet. If the answer is yes, I'd be real worried. People who are in business services, gardeners, custodians, procur...

The original post was getting very long. So, time to start a new one. Please post comments anytime a layoff happens in your department, whether it is 3161-related or not.

Anonymously asked: On Wed. (6/18) the departing Engineering AD held an all-hands meeting to explain how the layoff was good for the Lab and will enable us to have a bright future. Attendance was not that great. Anyone believe what he said?

Contributed by Frank Young: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08642r.pdf

Anonymously contributed: Obama tells California to eat dog dodo and like it. Here's some facts for you. http://wsws.org/articles/2009/jun2009/cali-j18.shtml There's also some very important news within this article that the good old news media like ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN forgot to tell you. Please read the entire article and pass along.

Anonymously asked: In today's News Online, "LAPIS view paycheck temporarily disabled" Does this mean that additional people will be recieving their final paycheck on short notice?

Contributed anonymously: 1. Aid and comfort to the enemy. The capabilities of the US to defend itself from future threats are certainly less now. Not doubt Russia, China, and Middle-East powers are greatly pleased by the destruction of LLNL. 2. There was intent to commit harm on the US by crippling the ability of LLNL to be a competent steward of the nuclear stockpile. GM and ULM cannot claim ignorance of what might happen. This is supported by the timeline of events and number of managers who collaborated in the efforts. Clearly the actions taken were carefully planned and widely discussed prior to execution. Therefore malice and forethought.

Contributed by Frank Young: Sunday article by Betsy Mason

Anonymously contributed: Newsline June 13th

New Topic: How to breath some life into this Blog: Anonymous said: I've been following this Blog now since its creation and occasional post to it. It is dull, lifeless and almost useless. With all that's gone on at LLNL in the last several months, one would think it would be a place where all would go the first chance they had. This is not the case. A couple of suggestions: - Take off monitoring to get faster turn-around. - Allow critical posts which should get people thinking and commenting. I tried to do this several weeks ago, but people just passed over it. - I suspect it may be a lot of work to run a Blog, but you might do some research to see what the secrets of successful ones are.

There needs to be a shift in thinking. The outside is actually much better than the lab right now. Many companies do their best to make the employees happy, and pay them well. "You feel bad for those without jobs and yet at the same time very grateful you kept yours." I was let go, and I feel the opposite. I feel sorry for those who are left in that place. You have to look really hard in the bay area to find a place that treat's employees like LLNS does, and has the added bonus of being a toxic superfund site with radioactive material. Did I mention the asbestos in those old buildings? You know that if there is a major earthquake, everything in those buildings can become contaminated with asbestos, including you, right? "Hang it there the best you can." Do yourself a favor and find a better company to work for. Really. Come back in 6 years when the LLNS contract is over, if you really want to.

Anonymously contributed: Coming into the lab on a weekend call-out the PSO have a list that he checks before letting me in. He made sure I won't be able to look at the list by standing behind the driver's side. Anyone have an idea or know what's the list is for? Does it have anything to do with the end of June flex lay-off?

anonymously contributed: Mission accomplished!

Part of being a career employee of LLNL in the past was that in some way you were a "true believer" of the mission. You had to be in some way. To endure the continuing background checks, the less-than-par salary, the internal politics, and of course the emnity of many groups that hated the Lab. You believed that what you worked on was rightous, that your government was good and you were proud to make personal sacrifices for your country. And now... That country has decided you are a disposable commodity. No pat on the back or even a handshake. A guard with a gun marched you out the gate and slammed it behind you. Betrayed, alone, shattered. There is no reason to be proud of this country anymore. None at all.

Anonymous said: I was laid off on Friday May 23. When I went to the ISP Resource Center this week, I felt vaguely uncomfortable. After thinking a minute I realized why - every single laid-off person there was a white man in his 50s! I'm not used to such uniformity, at LLNL or anywhere else. Is this a coincidence or is something going on here? Scooby's note: Look at the poll on the side bar: 42% are > 50.

Anynymously contributed: Thank you SPSE-UPTE for your offer to assist the career workers that were laid off from LLNL on May 22 and May 23. I have 3 decades of faithful and productive service to LLNL. I have a perfect work history and always got very good or outstanding employee appraisals and was told on 5-22-08 to get out and we don't want you back. For Management to treat me and my co-workers like they did on the lay off day was outrageous. I will take your advice and file a complaint resolution form before June 20 as the seniority rules were not followed in my work group. One big issue is the lay off unit I was placed in - management won't tell me which one my co-workers and I were placed in. All of us that were unfairly laid off need to FIGHT BACK. Anyone know the name of a good Labor Law attorney that has many years of experience with this type of case as I believe a class action suit should be started.

June 4, 2008 From SPSE: Last week SPSE-UPTE asserted that every laid-off employee has grounds to grieve his or her layoff. These employees have a number of reasons to file a grievance. The layoff process had irregularities and its outcome may reflect an unlawful bias in the decision making process. Moreover, grievances over the layoff would benefit everyone who remains at LLNL. Chief among these benefits would be exposing the LLNS layoff process to scrutiny, protecting academic freedom, and preserving the right to grieve. Employees have only 30 days after the offending event to file a grievance or request an extension. For those laid off May 22nd or 23rd, this deadline falls on the weekend of June 21st. Since LLNS refuses to release information on the number and composition of many of the business units formed to implement the layoffs, merely gathering the evidence to form a viable case will take longer than 30 days. SPSE-UPTE is painstakingly interviewing the laid-off employees to...

Anonymously contributed: Read this first Why in the world did LLNL terminate technical experts? There are so many useless doofusses roaming the lab to this day, not to mention most of the spineless technically incompetent managers, how in the world did they decide to lay off people like the guy interviewed in this article? The super-secret layoff-decisions crew ought to lose their security clearances and be forced to testify in Congress about their methodology for determining who to lay off. Then, technical experts that were laid off should be brought back and put in charge of a new round of layoffs targeting managers only. The least technically competent managers will go first. Then the LLNS idiots. We will target a manager to scientist ratio of 1/50. We will be financially solvent immediately, no one will miss the useless managers and we can recover our mission of science in the national interest.

How did you senator vote?

Please post anon. This is very hard for me to write no longer believe but I think it would be fun to see what input this will bring. I sincerely hope only positive comments about LLNL future will be posted under this topics no matter how bad people are going to want to jump all over the poster anatomy. I'm hoping the nay-sayers will just allow the people who have a positive attitude and out look for LLNL to post their honest opinions, hopes and dreams. Maybe some of us will actually be able to see some hope and light at the end of the tunnel. So lets assume George is not lying and FY-09 funding is adequate to sustain the life of all who remain at LLNL after Oct 1st, 2008 and all projects are funded 100%. Can anyone paint a picture of what we'll be doing at LLNL for the next year and how the outcome of these jobs will benefit the nation?

I can't figure out the employee's age, so I don't know whether or not this applies or not. However, if you are over 55 years of age and since you have separated from LLNL (either from UC if TCP2 or LLNS for TCP1), you can take any of the money from the 403b or DCP accounts without having to roll it over and wait until 59.5 and start up the SEPP, etc. The actual retirement is another thing, but the retirement savings is yours to take. Of course, you have to figure out tax implications, because any money you take and don't roll over will count as income in the year you receive it.

May be LLNS can learn from this

I Found this while reading a old Jan 08 Readers Digest and could'nt help but think that "if" the Government was open about the way it spends our money, we would have more money to spend on research. Read this article, it certainly opened my eyes a little wider!!! How Your Tax Dollars Are Spent tigger