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THIS IS A NEW TOPIC, BUT I COULDN'T FIND ANOTHER WAY TO POST IT.
Scooby's note: Please read. The very first post is for suggested new topics.
I was laid off from Livermore Lab on May 22, 2008, after almost 20 years of service. The Lab denies age discrimination; however, time and time again they ignored their own lay-off policies. Instead of using an inverse order of seniority in which layoffs are determined by job classification based on the Lab's population as a whole, the Lab used a convoluted process in which the layoff decisions were made at the smallest possible level within each and every department (sometimes down to a unit of 2!). This made it easier to target who could be let go. Many older workers were "set up" by being moved into affected units prior to the lay-off, and their positions were then filled with much younger workers. There was also a large enough population of contract and supplemental workers that a lay-off of career Lab employees should have been unnecessary.
The vast majority of those laid off were older workers. We were too young to retire, but too old to easily find other employment (it took me two years to find a part-time job). Many have still not found work and are on the brink of bankruptcy. Although I now have a job that I love, to this day, I feel like I've been raped. The losses that I and the other laid-off workers have suffered are staggering. Our attorneys have prepared a youtube video, which gives just a small taste of what we have experienced. Please watch.
THIS IS A NEW TOPIC, BUT I COULDN'T FIND ANOTHER WAY TO POST IT.
Scooby's note: Please read. The very first post is for suggested new topics.
I was laid off from Livermore Lab on May 22, 2008, after almost 20 years of service. The Lab denies age discrimination; however, time and time again they ignored their own lay-off policies. Instead of using an inverse order of seniority in which layoffs are determined by job classification based on the Lab's population as a whole, the Lab used a convoluted process in which the layoff decisions were made at the smallest possible level within each and every department (sometimes down to a unit of 2!). This made it easier to target who could be let go. Many older workers were "set up" by being moved into affected units prior to the lay-off, and their positions were then filled with much younger workers. There was also a large enough population of contract and supplemental workers that a lay-off of career Lab employees should have been unnecessary.
The vast majority of those laid off were older workers. We were too young to retire, but too old to easily find other employment (it took me two years to find a part-time job). Many have still not found work and are on the brink of bankruptcy. Although I now have a job that I love, to this day, I feel like I've been raped. The losses that I and the other laid-off workers have suffered are staggering. Our attorneys have prepared a youtube video, which gives just a small taste of what we have experienced. Please watch.
Comments
One may recall, that after the 2007 transition, there were massive reorganizations everywhere to put everyone in a box on the org chart (for future termination). This was follow by (subjectively) excluding 40% of the employee. With this kind of process, one can target and layoff anyone they desire. Example: if you are moved into a box (business unit) of one, then you are the least senior. Therefore (following seniority policy), you are layoff by being the employee with least seniority.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5xc2TGJkX0
I am curious, does anyone know of someone in the management side who was laid off, or was it only the worker bees?
the idea was to shut up and follow from there on!
February 20, 2012 7:05 PM
You mean because they all had gray hair. That's how LLNS viewed them. LLNS/LLNS want goovey looking dudes like Charlie "Grecian Formula" McMillan and Brett "Hot Rod" Knapp.
By insisting on privatizing LLNL unnecessarily for errors that LANL supposedly made but was later largely exonerated for, NNSA leaders, Bodman, D'Agostino, were able to insure about $100M of LLNL Operating funds are wasted each year, and therefore not available to support current work. The negative financial impact (profit, taxes, retirement and medical cost increases)or privatization were well known and talked about openly prior to implementing the transition.
The liars said " false economies" would make up the difference,what they meant was firing these people.
The "perp walk" was LLNL Human Resources thrust into the employee gangbang, marching these fine people out, under guard, with no notice, as if they couldn't be trusted. What a life shattering experience.
It is a sad and shameful episode in LLNL history. The victims still suffer, the real perps walk fat and free, in the DOE, NNSA, LLNL human resources and in LLNL management.
It stunk.
IT IS THE WORST DECISION DOE HAS EVER MADE, WITH A LONG TERM COST MORE THAN DOUBLE THE SOLYDRA FOLLY.
Just because some little men were jealous.
It will weigh heavily on the jury that LLNL management readjusted policies just before the layoffs from seniority to "need based" and then proceeded to layoff a disproportionate number of older folks and minorities.
But what will really piss of the jurymen, sitting for weeks in a trial under their own personal federal duress, is that all of this will have been hurt for no reason, that nothing was saved for the taxpayer, that the funds were merely, as it were "tossed into the wind".
My guess is that jurors, once informed, will want a taste of revenge and they will get justice by throwing a giant settlement to those injured. A nice $1M each, tripled for negligence damages, a cool $500M will slap the perpetrators, the b******d D"Agostino and the carpetbagging b***h, Soderstrom, awake.
For that I am sad.
February 22, 2012 2:12 AM
I wish this was the case, however, as in the Los Alamos RIF trial of ~ 1995, the jury just couldn't justify giving everyone a cool $1-2M each and go back to their jobs at McDonalds or cleaning toilets. In these tough times, I suspect this will even more true.
You forgot about all the high paying Bechtel transplants
First off, that was the CEO of LANS speaking. And I'm sure he would acknowledge the pain of all RIF-ed, not just the plaintiffs.
Second, no one would ever contest that a RIF caused pain and suffering. The point of law will be whether those RIF-ed were selected in an unfair, biased way. They definitely deserve their day in court, but I won't be surprised if they get little added recompense.
February 20, 2012 8:44 PM
You could tell he's using Grecian Formula now because his gray hair is showing through in the sun as a weird orange color.
February 23, 2012 1:01 AM
That's not Grecian Formula. It's the tritiated water!