Anonymous contribution:
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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January 27, 2013 at 9:51 AM
Right. I assume you're not a lawyer. Or a knowledgeable person of any type.
The EBA's will hit the gate around march and remember the eba list is the layoff list
Wonderful, another pay cut. They should do what January 27, 2013 at 9:51 AM said and get this over with instead of these paycuts for the next four years or more.
- 10% *salary* cut (whacks you in the HAPC - will take 3 yrs after 10% cut is restored (likely Sept 30 best case) to recover your HAPC in the pension).
- 2 Furlough Days per month (whacks you in YOS -- no way to recover, except work longer).
- Cancel Variable Compensation Program (VCP) - costs you cash.
- No buy out plan (they're not going to pay you to leave...they favor self-deportation...a layoff with no cost to them or media/political attention)
Of course that's on top of the 7% pension pay-in this year.
And, of course, they're exempting the high up management from the furlough days (protecting their own YOS, of course!!!) because they're too critical to miss work.
All of this has been designed to have the "least impact on employee benefits".
Huh??? How Orwellian... It's precisely designed to hit employees in the hardest way possible and force them to self-deport.
January 28, 2013 at 11:48 AM
How stupid of employees to still have not gotten the message: Get the hell out! You're not needed or wanted, you're unhappy, things are not going to get better, and the grass is definitely greener elsewhere. WTF is it going to take for you folks to understand that you are DONE? Give it up and move on - the only rational choice.
It's clearly the opposite.
It will be interesting when Parney/LLNS:
"communicate to you as quickly as possible what actions our Laboratory might take, along with the reasoning."
The reasoning should be a fascinating load of hogwash and doublespeak.
January 28, 2013 at 2:30 PM
NO ONE CARES. It's amazing and frightening what doomed people will consider "fascinating." Get a clue.
Least impact would be nothing happens. Next least perhaps is most folks are untouched and X number of employees are RIF-ed. I think the notion is to spread the pain, and see if any major fiscal disruption is temporary.
Please lay out the ingenuous options.
I liked the lab a lot better when we worked like hell to get stuff done and UC took care of good benefits and working out smart plans to take care of stuff like this.
They don't really seem to be doing this in a well thought out manner.
Or at best, not explaining it very well. What "benefits" did they preserve by doing it this way?
You mean a 4 year problem correct? These cuts are for 4 consecutive years and can be extened after that if this BS doesn't work. It is going to be just like your pay freezes, dilbets!
He's right about that.
I guess it all comes down to whether this is going to be a couple of month thing or if this is going to be a years long thing, or even worse from a pension perspective, a thing they do every couple of years and you will never be able to full bake your future gains by getting 36 continuous months at your new salary.
Instead of waiting 35 months (due to retroactive to Jan 1) for this raise to bake into people's pensions, they will have to wait 3 years + however long the furlough goes on for.
Also, anytime they are furloughed again in the next 36 months, the clock starts all over again.
This technique of not allowing HAPC to bake was a common tactic in corporate america in the 80s and 90s. I don't know if the courts ever ruled against it. In this case, with the likely ongoing CR, debt ceiling, budget, etc battles its very conceivable this furlough thing could keep happening at least once every 36 months for quite awhile. He could be making significantly more a few years from now and have NONE of it counted in his pension.
Definitely something to keep an eye on as all of this furlough stuff plays out.
Decrease in pay = decrease in our TCP2 payment into 401k.
"Highest Average Plan Compensation (HAPC) – your highest average monthly
full-time equivalent plan compensation during the 36 continuous months as an active member of the Plan and/or an active participant in UCRP"
Keyword: "continuous"
Interesting...good info.
Not very strategic of LLNL management.
Whole plan doesn't seem very well designed on various levels.
Parney being new to LLNL (and not himself personally in the pension) doesn't understand the issues he's creating.
"Retirement Heist"
Ellen E. Schultz
UC was so much more thoughtful and creative about stuff like this.
January 29, 2013 at 8:04 PM
Simplest solution: Just RIF all the people you need to to make the budget work, and be done with it. Make the RIFs based on performance only, to minimize the need for further hiring if good people leave. No VSIP, no furloughs, no hours reductions. Keep it real and keep it focused on getting the work done most efficiently. It is mindboggling the contortions the labs go to to keep from appearing what they are: profit-driven enterprises. Is there anyone left working for the labs that doesn't fully understand that?? Get a clue: UC is never coming back. Get over it.
Great book. I heard an interview with Ellen Schultz about a year ago and was shocked to learn what is really happening across American in the corporate board rooms against employee pensions and benefits. The greed and immoral behavior seen at the top of corporate America is disgusting!
January 30, 2013 at 8:51 PM
Because they have finally realized that to promise employees a pension in the economic situation of the past decade is ridiculous? Yeah. Right. If you are as valuable to the company as you think you are, your compensation will leave you more than enough to save a generous amount for retirement. Unless you chose to live way above your (actual) means, and owe much more than you can afford to repay. Or perhaps you have misjudged your value to the company? It's all abut the consequences of your life decisions.
Financial Times - January 30, 2013
US pension insurer warns of rising deficit
By Norma Cohen, Demography Correspondent
The finances of the US’s multi-employer pension schemes have deteriorated so quickly over the past year that the body that insures them will almost certainly run out of cash in 20 years, according to a new report.
The chances of the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation – the publicly created but privately funded body that insures the nation’s occupational pension schemes – going bust went from 1 in 3 at the end of 2011 to more than 9 in 10 by the end of 2012, a report prepared for the PBGC and released on Tuesday said.
The woes of the PBGC are common to pension schemes– and their insurers – in industrialised economies where defined benefit pension schemes form a significant portion of retirement benefit. Weak returns on assets after the 2008 financial crisis meant schemes did not earn as much as they expected, while low bond yields gave rise to much larger calculations of deficits. However, the PBGC noted that the deterioration in the funding status for pension schemes financed by groups of employers was down to a range of factors, one of which was limits on the insurer’s ability to force employers to pay their fair share of premiums.
I guessing the bigwigs at the top knew this and also knew if they got theirs first they'd be grandfathered in to keep it but those who wait or can't retire they'll just have to hope the plan doesn't go bye-bye before they can start to draw.
"Simplest solution: Just RIF all the people you need to to make the budget work, and be done with it. Make the RIFs based on performance only, to minimize the need for further hiring if good people leave. No VSIP, no furloughs, no hours reductions. Keep it real and keep it focused on getting the work done most efficiently."
I think this is the best solution I have heard so far. Makes perfect sense to me. Most private companies do that all the time. It is all about surviving in a tough market, performance and keeping the best talent for moving forward.
February 4, 2013 at 12:21 AM
A lot of attorneys will be making lots of money. Good for them. Bad for lab employees, who will be losing ots of money.