What did you think? were you listening? or did you just tune out? Tell us!
Tri-Valley Cares needs to be on this if they aren't already. We need to make sure that NNSA and LLNL does not make good on promises to pursue such stupid ideas as doing Plutonium experiments on NIF. The stupidity arises from the fact that a huge population is placed at risk in the short and long term. Why do this kind of experiment in a heavily populated area? Only a moron would push that kind of imbecile area. Do it somewhere else in the god forsaken hills of Los Alamos. Why should the communities in the Bay Area be subjected to such increased risk just because the lab's NIF has failed twice and is trying the Hail Mary pass of doing an SNM experiment just to justify their existence? Those Laser EoS techniques and the people analyzing the raw data are all just BAD anyways. You know what comes next after they do the experiment. They'll figure out that they need larger samples. More risk for the local population. Stop this imbecilic pursuit. They wan...
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The bottomline is this Miller and Bodman. You've lost the lab and it's not coming back. The word is out, LLNL is no place to work if you're looking for long term employment or a career. What it was will NEVER be again.
I caught the first few minutes of Bodman's talk. I'm pretty slow, when he said he had no political ambitions and that he was going to give a straight from the hip talk, I should have felt the blast of hot air coming. After a few minutes of blathering I went about my business.
This used to be such a great place to work but has now devolved into an expensive white elephant. To paraphrase how Miller has explained the state of affairs:
"It was what it was, It now is what it is."
Please save your pep-talks until after the last UC-LLNL employee retires. No one really cares. Evidently you didn't get the message at the end of your talk when you asked, "are there any questions". What did you hear Miller? Think about it.
Here's what really matters to most of us, boys!!!
Counting down the days, hours, minutes, and seconds to the better life and away from all the uncertainties, back stabbing, politics and false hopes.
Miller said several important things. Number one, the worst case budget (The presidents) is the same as this years. Both the House and the Senate have submitted budget numbers modestly higher than that. So much for the "psychic" claims that another 2000 people were going to lose their jobs next year. We know nothing about 2010 at this point but 2009 isn't looking that bad.
Miller also said that they are negotiating with DOE for an increase in the benefits package as (surprise surprise) we're falling short of similar organizations in this department. That'll happen when you kill the pension plan, remove the 453B without providing a substitute and make other substantially less than substantially equivalent changes. It'll be interesting to see if anything comes of it.
One thing I'll say, this was the most positive/relaxed body language I've seen from Miller in a couple of years. He's a lousy liar and doesn't deal as well with high levels of stress as somebody in his position ideally should; so my bet is that he was being honest and that for one more year anyway the sky is not in fact falling.
So not surprisingly the picture is neither all positive nor all negative.
When Miller said:
the budget is going to be somewhere between what it was last year and a little bit more
did you feel more informed?
A little bit more?
Does he think he is talking to 1st graders?
The LLNSmites said nothing anyone with a brain is going to believe. There's the facts for you and anyone who read this.
The worst thing about Miller's talk, along with the sad lack of questions, was the graph he showed showing that the amount cut in scientists was about the same cut in support/costs therefore meaning no real overall saving has been made. Very very sad. What are they doing?!?!?
In or around Feb of 2009 you'll hear an entirely different story coming from LLNS/ULM mouth than what you heard on the 8/7/08. Now get to work.
Rumor is that employees will have to contribute more to their medical insurance next year to help reduce this shortfall.
I hear you, but the pricer budgets recently released reflect a lower overall cost of doing business. Are we missing something or do they have a new way to tax the ever dwindling WFO accounts?
So what makes FY-09 any better than FY-08 and how can they say _no lay-offs_ next year. Could it be we have enough folks leaving on their own without be booted. If that's the case there must be a lot more than 40 people a month leaving. How about it LLNS. How about posting the people leaving as a live update on your wonderful LLNL root page so people can see the facts. You do know how to make a real time counter that's synchronized with HR manpower data-base, correct?
"Mr. Darling (UC Executive Vice President) reported that the Livermore laboratory is facing a $280 million funding shortfall this fiscal year resulting from a variety of components. These include a $50 million increase in inflationary costs, a $100 million reduction in federal funding due to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s budget reductions for Livermore, and items associated with the awarding of the new contract, the first of which is $86 million in increases mainly for retirement and health benefits compared to the costs the laboratory would have absorbed if it had remained part of the University. The second is $44 million in increased management fees and expenses that DOE agreed to provide to the winning contractor. To accommodate the shortfall, the laboratory is reducing both its operational and labor costs, but as the majority of its budget is related to its employees, the laboratory is being compelled to reduce its workforce by 2,000 employees over a two-year period."
Your post left off the last three sentences in the paragraph...
"Attrition, not filling vacancies, and voluntary
employee separations have eliminated 981 positions. Five hundred employees
were laid off from the supplemental labor force and flexible-term workforce of
largely temporary and contract employees. Five hundred thirty-five layoffs will
occur from the career workforce."
Since these are the May minutes, most of the separations have already occurred.
It was useful, helpful, and shows resourcefulness!
I would be very interested to know how many people have separated so far, if anyone can estimate!
Q. Do those times mean it takes a day to get a post vetted?
Any way to speed that up- maybe post, and then delete later if not appropriate?
Any way to speed that up- maybe post, and then delete later if not appropriate?"
Answers:
Yes it does, sometimes more , sometimes less.
Your approach of posting everything and then screening later does not work for me.
Thank you for visiting!
At LANL, we've had scientists leaving left and right. However, LANS management refuses to even acknowledge that these staff members are leaving. They took the retirees off the current employee listings, but I know lots of younger people who left LANL in disgust (non-retirees), gave up their DOE clearances, and yet LANS still keeps listing them as being "Afflilates". Some of these people left LANL over a year ago.
What a bunch of hooey! LANS is trying to cover up the significant and on-going "brain drain" that is occurring at LANL. I wouldn't doubt that the same thing might be going on at LLNL.
Privatization is slowly killing off the NNSA labs. Heckavajob, NNSA!
Shows that half the people in the division have gone in the last year!
Well lets just hope the people keep leaving and they can't find anyone to do the job for half the wages and no benefits or pension plan. Oh and BTW a 401k is not a pension plan by any means, it's a friggin joke. The only way a 401k is any good is if you start out at $100K a years at age 19- 22 and then continually bank 20% of your income until you are 62-65. Then you'll have to be happy with putting it in a secure "savings" plan at 3.5% interest and live off the interest only. How sad for the next generation and all generations to follow. No loyalty to the employees, no loyalty to the employers and no loyalty to the nation. Where do you think this is all heading? Then there's the fools who will vote for higher taxes that can only stagnate your ability to save, save, save....