Anonymously contributed in the LANL Blog:
I never signed any contract to work for DOE or the Federal government. I signed up as a UC employee. No different than if I worked as a researcher at UC working on a CONTRACT for NASA, NIH, etc. I was a UC employee. Payed into and was promised the UC retirement system. Retired under UC BEFORE LANS was even a thought in someone's mind. Remain retired under UCRP. But now my medical benefits are provided by some company I never worked for, while other UC retirees from other institutions are treated differently and better. How can DOE allow one entity (UC) to get off the hook and assign their obligations to their retirees to a new company that can downgrade and eliminate those obligations at will? Crap, it's one think to be traded when you are still playing....it's quite another to be promised one thing, devote your entire working career to it, and then have it yanked out from under you. Legal or not, it's not fair. Mark my words, this will end up in court and DOE, UC, and LANS will be held accountable.
2 comments:
"Mark my words, this will end up in court and DOE, UC, and LANS will be held accountable."
If it ends up in court you stand to loose quite a bit of money I am afraid. The lawyers counseling you are going to soak you dry and you will have nothing to show for it. In fact, it may be worse. If it can be demonstrated that your lawsuit is frivolous you will get crushed financially.
A class action:
Threat of a lawsuit may be the only way to get UC's attention.
They may not even have thought about this, and may decide it is to their political advantage to do the right thing. After all it does not cost them anything to include the LLNL retirees in the group health care deals they have already negotiated, and DoE picks up the cost.
I seriously doubt any ethical court would decide that this issue is frivolous, altho we ARE talking about lawyers. Who's assets could they go after? There's little to lose and a lot to gain.
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