LLNL - The True Story -

Article by Gary Gwilliam of Gwilliam, Ivary, Chiosso, Cavalli, & Brewer, the lead attorney for the 130 former LLNL employees

Anonymously contributed: Frequently Asked Questions 1. What are the employee and employer contributions to the defined benefit plan for fiscal year 2012? A. Employer pension contributions will be $20 million for fiscal year 2012 and employee contributions will be 5 percent of pay. Contributions will begin in June. 2. Who is affected? A. Employee contributions apply to only those employees who selected TCP1 during contract transition. 3. 4. Why are pension contributions required? A. Pension plan contributions are legally required based on the plan's assets and obligations.The assets are the cash, stocks, and bonds owned by the plan. The obligations are the amounts that the plan owes to participants - the stream of pension payments that current and future retirees (and their beneficiaries) will receive. When a pension plan's funding ratio drops such that its assets are insufficient to cover the present value of its current obligations, contr...

Anonymously contributed: From the Santa Fe New Mexican: 557 LANL workers accept buyout By Roger Snodgrass | The New Mexican 3/26/2012 Los Alamos National Laboratory announced today that 557 people will leave their jobs under a voluntary separation program. The number falls within the range of 400-800 employees lab officials said they needed to reduce the likelihood of involuntary layoffs. With some job categories excluded, most of the approximately 7,600 employees in the regular workforce were eligible to apply for the separation package, which provides up to 39 weeks of severance pay. The largest group, 258, were in the professional categories, including finance, information technology and records management, 152 were in research and development. There were 74 manager, 59 technicians and 14 support employees. Laboratory officials have said the plan would be the least disruptive option for lowering costs and gaining flexibility during a time of budget uncertainties. Amo...

Anonymously contributed: Read this

Anonymously contributed: More LANS Managers During Budget Cuts at Los Alamos The Associate Directorate for Weapons (ADW) is being realigned into two directorates to more effectively address performance of LANL's mission, communicate with external customers and partners, and provide more direct access to management. The Directorate for Weapon Physics (ADX) will be led by Bob Webster as the acting Associate Director and will have responsibility for weapon design and computational physics along with programmatic responsibility for the Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) Program and Science Campaigns (SC). The directorate will consist of X-CP and X-TD Divisions. The Directorate for Weapon Engineering and Experiments (ADW) will be led by John Benner as the acting Associate Director, and will have responsibility for weapon engineering and dynamic experimentation including Nevada activities along with programmatic responsibility for Directed Stockpile Work (DSW) and Engineer...

Anonymously contributed: I had 27+ yrs(as a) LLNL employee; (was) laid off in 2008 & a part of the lawsuit against the Lab. I've been searching the web with no luck, trying to find out the name, members, and head of the committee in D.C. that promoted/ramrodded/whatever the privatization of the Labs. Several months ago I came in on the tail end of an NPR interview with the head of the committee (I believe) who said something to the effect that, "...some of the efficiencies we expected have yet to materialize..." I would also like to know who in Congress voted for privatizing the Labs (and who did not). Does anyone have that information? Thank you!

http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/20/politics/house-energy-hearing/index.html

Anonymoulsy contributed: From LLNL Newsline DOE approves pension plan contributions 03/15/2012 The Department of Energy has approved the request to initiate employer contributions to the LLNS Defined Benefits Plan, or TCP1. DOE has approved employer pension contributions of $20 million for fiscal year 2012. Employee contributions will begin in approximately early June at 5 percent of pay. Employee contributions apply to only those employees who selected TCP1. An implementation committee has been formed and is working out the details; more information will be provided in future editions of Newsline.

Anonymously contributed: I see Parney has tweaked LLNL's mission statement... Old Version Ensure the safety and security of the nation through applied science and technology in three key areas: Nuclear Security, International and Domestic Security, and Energy and Environmental Security. New Version Strengthening the United States’ security through development and application of world-class science and technology to: enhance the nation’s defense; reduce the global threat from terrorism and weapons of mass destruction; and, more broadly, respond with vision, quality, integrity and technical excellence to scientific issues of national importance.

Anonymously contributed: Interesting move, but doubt it goes anywhere in Congress... ---- Global Security Newswire Legislation Would Formalize Obama Nuke Modernization Pledge March 9, 2012 A key U.S. lawmaker on Thursday submitted a bill aimed at committing President Obama to fulfill nuclear weapons spending commitments while implementing a strategic arms control deal with Russia. House Armed Forces Strategic Forces Subcommittee Chairman Michael Turner (R-Ohio) said his proposal would specifically connect U.S. nuclear arsenal cuts to the fulfillment of Obama's nuclear arms complex modernization pledge. The administration in 2010 announced a decade-long, $85 billion nuclear weapons spending plan amid efforts to secure Senate ratification of the New START treaty. ... “The long-term health and credibility of our nuclear deterrent depends on this bill, as does our national security. During the Senate’s consideration of the New START treaty, the president made many promises...

Anonymously contributed: Mayor, commissioner head to D.C. to lobby against slashed funding By Lou Mattei, SUN News Editor Thursday, March 8, 2012 10:06 AM MST Española Mayor Alice Lucero is hoping she and a handful of other municipal, county and state politicians from across New Mexico can change Congress’ mind about cutting funding and jobs at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The Lab plans to shed 400 to 800 jobs from its workforce by the end of the fiscal year in accordance with a $300 million budget cut between fiscal years 2011 and 2012 and expectations for flat or lower budgets in the future, according to Lab spokesman Fred deSousa. He said about 15 percent of the Lab’s employees are from Rio Arriba County. So if the job cuts come down proportionally, Rio Arriba stands to lose 60 to 120 jobs from the layoffs.... ...Lucero pointed out other Administration facilities were “funded generously” compared to the Lab. Sandia National Laboratories, for instance, saw its ...

Anonymously contributed: ** Double whammy blow to US nuclear science ** RSC Chemistry World - 08 March 2012 Nuclear science in the US has been dealt a double blow with the announcement of huge budget cuts at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) coming hard on the heels of the mothballing of a multi-billion dollar research facility at the lab. Actinide scientists in the US and abroad are dismayed by the news and warn that nuclear safety and technological advances could be compromised in the long run.... ...Actinide scientists elsewhere are unhappy with the developments. 'Development of a highly trained workforce in actinide chemistry is expensive and time-consuming. Yet, such people are extremely important in a wide range of issues important to humanity, including development of an advanced nuclear energy system, proper handling and disposal of high level nuclear waste, remediating environments contaminated by actinides, nuclear forensics for attribution purposes and m...

Anonymously contributed (in all CAPS) NIF TO TAKE A 20 MILLION DOLLAR HIT FOR 2013 PLUS DOE TOLD NIF NO MORE SUCKING MONEY FROM OTHER PROGRAMS! THIS TRANSLATES TO 100 OR 200 EMPLOYEES TO BE CUT FROM NIF. BUT ULM WANTS TO DISTRIBUTE THE CUTS ACROSS THE LAB.

From the creator of he BLOG: Guy Oldfahrt LANL VSP: New Blog for "Excluded" and otherwise impacted LANL employees. ----------------------------------- Long time employees at LANL, who have been EXCLUDED from the VSP program have started their own website at http://lanllayoffs2012.blogspot.com Please post your comments there and signup if you would like to participate with other employees who are investigating what actions may be able to be taken to force the Laboratory to open the program to everyone.

I added a link to a new LANL BLOG under "interesting links" http://lanllayoffs2012.blogspot.com/

Anonymously contributed: I thought this might be of interest, Parney give a good explanation on the LLNL Pension. The graph, which is very informative, is also attached. -------- LLNL Newsline Status of the LLNS Defined Benefit Pension Plan 3/5/2012 As discussed at my January all-hands talk, I'd like to provide some more information about the funding status of the defined benefit pension plan and how its liabilities and funding level are determined. Note that this applies only to those employees who selected Total Compensation Plan 1 (TCP1) when they transitioned to LLNS on Oct. 1, 2007. (All other employees -- those who selected TCP2 and those hired since Oct. 1, 2007 -- are not affected.) I want to emphasize that DOE/NNSA has repeatedly stated that they understand their responsibilities and commitment to fund contractor pension plans. The graph below shows the plan's assets (left-hand scale), funded ratio (right-hand scale), and liability levels. As you can see, ...

Anonymously contributed: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/us/los-alamos-braces-for-deep-cuts-at-lab.html "Mr. McMillan said the layoffs were necessary so that Los Alamos, which has shifted its mission from primarily nuclear weapons to national security, could continue its work...” Los Alamos is a national security lab, not a weapons lab? So is there one or zero weapons labs left?

Anonymously contributed: LANS Voluntary Separation Program - Excluded Categories AD DIR DIR CFO-CNTL Financial Systems Analyst 4 DIR CFO-SYS Financial Systems Analyst 2 DIR CFO-SYS Financial Systems Analyst 3 DIR CFO-SYS Financial Systems Analyst 4 DIR CGA-GAO Government Affairs Specialist 3 DIR CGA-GAO Government Affairs Specialist 4 DIR DIR Executive Director DIR EA-ARP1 Audit Manager 4 DIR EA-ARP1 Auditor 4 DIR EA-ARP2 Audit Manager 4 DIR EA-ARP2 Auditor 4 PADOPS ADESH OM-MS Occupational Med Counselor 1 ADESH OM-MS Occupational Med Counselor 2 ADESH OM-MS Occupational Med Counselor 3 ADESH OM-MS Occupational Nurse 2 ADESH OM-MS Occupational Nurse 3 ADESH OM-MS Occupational Nurse 4 ADESH OM-MS Occupational Physician 3 ADESH OM-MS Occupational Psychologist 3 ADESH OM-MS Occupational Psychologist 4 ADESH OM-MS Physician Assistant 2 ADESH OM-MS Physician Assistant 3 ADNHHO ES-FE Engineer 1 ADNHHO ES-FE Engineer 2 ADNHHO ES-FE Engineer 3 ADNHHO ES-FE Engine...

Anonymously contributed: http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/hugh-gusterson/weapons-labs-and-the-inconvenient-truth