Anonymously contributed:
LANS Voluntary Retirement Incentive Program?
Does anyone have any information of a VRIP at LANS slated for April 2012 at LANS and LLNS? It looks like LANS is lining their ducks (e.g. creating RIF lists) for major a VRIP and/or RIF based on a significant budget reduction for FY 2012. This is also based on the possibility of automatic "across the board" super-committee budget cuts. MacMillan will be speaking to this on November 15.
LANS Voluntary Retirement Incentive Program?
Does anyone have any information of a VRIP at LANS slated for April 2012 at LANS and LLNS? It looks like LANS is lining their ducks (e.g. creating RIF lists) for major a VRIP and/or RIF based on a significant budget reduction for FY 2012. This is also based on the possibility of automatic "across the board" super-committee budget cuts. MacMillan will be speaking to this on November 15.
Comments
I am not sure if this is just the super-committee cuts, it could also be that some cuts will be coming even if the super-committee comes through. Not much we can do about this so just keep doing your jobs and always have a plan B.
We paid good money to have the Bechtel business "experts" come in and take over the labs so that they could load us down with bloated overhead and a new army of over-paid upper management.
We can't waste all those hard gained "benefits" now, can we? Besides, all the politicos in New Mexico love receiving GRT taxes for their pet projects.
No, we'll just have to start laying off more of the direct-funded technical staff to help defuse this crisis. We can then follow this up by raising overhead rates on any remaining projects once funding disappears with the loss of technical staff.
It's our only hope! Only more Bechtel management and more restrictive lab policies can save us.
I would expect LANS and LLNS upper management to enact a "stealth" program that begins targeting staff for mass firings so that they can minimize the cost of laying off workers.
No severance, no unemployment, no nuth'in. Just a single box in hand to take out your personnel items as you are suddenly escorted out the gates by the lab security force.
November 13, 2011 9:38 AM
"Targeting staff". The environment Knapp has been thriving in for 5-years. To name a few targets: Matsumoto, Aubert, Smith, Valicenti, Garcia, Hsu, Konecni, Hinkley, Romero, Trujillo, Salgado, Trujillo, Romero, Bailey, Martinez, Trujillo. Three Trujillo's and two Romero's. You don't have a chance if your surname ends in a vowel. No surprise, he did these stunts "at Livermore".
I have to agree with this. The labs are a different place now.
The American and British nuclear weapon programs are in steep decline from where they were over a decade ago but the Brits seem to be in a little bit better shape than the Americans at the moment.
Most members of Congress have no idea how much damage they have done to the US nuke labs over the last decade. It appears more damage is coming...
Until then, the non-weapons distractions remain and obscure the need to modernize the complex to energize the next generation of scientists.
LLNL now, is lead by someone who might be well connected, but who cannot guide scientific performance discussions, nor judge candidates for key leadership roles.
November 15, 2011 10:20 PM
And who is left with the knowledge and experience to perform a UGT? Those folks are either dead, retired, RIFed, or forced out of the nuclear weapon program. We no longer have the capability to execute a UGT!
November 20, 2011 4:54 AM
You are correct. It used to be, not so long ago, that people lamented that no one any longer in the weapons program had witnessed an above-ground test, so lacked any feel for the power of nuclear weapons. Now, no one left has even conducted an underground test, so lacks the ability to carry one out. Once the Islamic world gains nuclear weapons beyond the rudimentary stage, the US is dead. We will be fighting nuclear attacks with remote drone strikes. One US city destroyed for one terrorist killed, or one dud US attempt at a nuclear strike.