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This BLOG is for LLNL present and past employees, friends of LLNL and anyone impacted by the privatization of the Lab to express their opinions and expose the waste, wrongdoing and any kind of injustice against employees and taxpayers by LLNS/DOE/NNSA. The opinions stated are personal opinions. Therefore, The BLOG author may or may not agree with them before making the decision to post them. Comments not conforming to BLOG rules are deleted. Blog author serves as a moderator. For new topics or suggestions, email jlscoob5@gmail.com

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Sunday, February 24, 2019

You are in trouble if you complain...

Did employees working at LLNL go from a weakly democratic system of management under UC, to an unopposed for-profit dictatorship under LLNS? How could this not compromise all aspects of our Lab missions? To what extent is the commenter below from the "white privilege" topic correct? 

"In this way discrimination is not a special issue at LANL or LLNL, it is just another thing you need to be silent about. Complain about safety, your in trouble, complain about abuse, your in trouble, complain about bad management your in trouble, complain about infrastructure your in trouble, complain about security your in trouble."

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can't speak for LLNL but at LANL it has always been that way. The difference is it used to be little kingdoms around the lab with people who were untouchable. Dare you speak ill of the King. Now it is more centralized with what I would call ignorant power flailing but some Kingdoms still exist and everybody knows who they are.

Anonymous said...

Don't worry about it. When an accident or security issue occurs that is beyond the ability of the LLNS PR folks to handle, we the NNSA LFO, will wake from our long slumber and reduce the LLNS award fee as needed. Can we go back to sleep now?

Anonymous said...

Do they send the managers to a special school to learn how to retaliate against anyone who opens their mouth? They are remarkably effective.

Anonymous said...

2/26/2019 1:33 PM

I'm glad I'm not your manager. I'd be under intense pressure from my management to build a HR case for firing you. I'd try to resist it but your obvious not-a-team-player attitude would be seen everywhere and reported to upper managers, who would tell me to "do something" about you. Been there done that, and glad I'm not there anymore. Good luck, you're going to need it.

Anonymous said...

"Do they send the managers to a special school to learn how to retaliate against anyone who opens their mouth? They are remarkably effective"

It takes a village of LLNS senior managers (collusion) to be "remarkably effective". Despite all the LLNS boiler plate language of no reprisal or retaliation, no LLNS manager can EVER do such acts of misconduct. Therefore, the employee MUST be the problem, and should be disciplined for acts of misconduct. This is where we are.

Anonymous said...

"It takes a village of LLNS senior management (collusion) to be "remarkably effective"."

Correct, except the village would include DOE as a contractor misconduct enabler. How else would Dee Kotla have been so easily fired by UC/LLNL for "misuse of government property" by making $4.30 of local phone calls, when in that same period of time, she testified against UC/LLNL in a sexual harassment case on behalf of another female lab employee? DOE reimbursed UC/LLNL $10,000,000 for legal fees to fight Dee Kotla in court. So what has changed since then? Not much, except now the NNSA is reimbursing LLNS for their legal costs to fight employee wrongful termination lawsuits.

Anonymous said...

Not the whole story, by a long shot.

Anonymous said...

"Not the whole story, by a long shot."

Your a little short on facts that may in any way, support your lab PR position.

Anonymous said...

Facts you don't need to know. The right people do know them, finally.

Anonymous said...

Here are a few more facts from the "Full Measure" "Legal Swindle" story:

"She sued for wrongful termination and won. But if it were as simple as that, there wouldn’t be much of a story. Instead, Dee Kotla’s lawsuit became one of the longest-running and most expensive whistleblower cases on record. That’s because Lawrence Livermore lab fought her every step of the way, using hardball tactics, high-priced lawyers and your tax dollars."

Anonymous said...

"Facts you don't need to know. The right people do know them, finally"

Yes, the right people did know, since Dee Kotla won in Court. As the saying goes, you have "been busier than a cat trying to bury a turd on a frozen pond" in the attempt to excuse misconduct on the part of lab management, and it is not working well for you. So sad, that even the "Me Too" movement has not inspired you to form other perspectives.

Anonymous said...

All you know is what has been made public. Again, not the whole story, which as usual now that court cases have been settled, will never be publicly known. But some people do know the rest of the story and will not forget it. No one ever wants to admit that his views are based on limited or incorrect data. Oh well...

Anonymous said...

"If you knew what I know, you would certainly agree with me. But, you can't ever know what I know, because you don't have the right clearances. So, you are forever doomed to ignorance, and have no say. Sorry"

A sad litany repeated by labies over generations to justify technical work that is not even right and personnel actions that are egregiously wrong.

Anonymous said...

"All you know is what has been made public"

What we do know is UC-LLNL over many years, was reimbursed about 10 million in tax payer dollars to defend themselves in court against the 1997 Dee Kotla termination.

What we do know is LLNS over many years, was reimbursed about 23 million in tax payer dollars to defend themselves in court against 129 laid off employees. That case just ended in 2015.

What we do know is as long as contractors know they have easy access to tens of millions of tax payer dollars to defend themselves in court, additional unjustifiable terminations and layoffs will occur that in some way directly benefit the contractor and not lab missions.

Anonymous said...

3/14/2019 2:14 PM

Get off your hobby horse. It is not about "clearance." It is about personal knowledge of a legal case some of whose details will never be made public, by Court agreement. Get over yourself.

Anonymous said...

"All you know is what has been made public"

What we do know is contractors after years of being reimbursed millions in tax payer dollars for legal fees, usually elect to settle out of court (using contract funds) at the point where they believe losing in court is more likely than not. Nothing surprising here. What is not well known to the public is unlike a true private company who pays for their own legal fees, a DOE or NNSA contractor is subject to paying back ALL those reimbursed millions in tax payer dollars if they lose in court, plus paying for the damages to the employee(s) ordered by the court. With these terms for legal fee reimbursement, the cost/benefit of extended litigation is extremely favorable to the contractor, while financially and emotionally hurtful to the employee(s).

Anonymous said...

Emotionally hurtful?? So what? If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

Anonymous said...

"Emotionally hurtful?? So what? If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."

Do you mean the LLNS kitchen described below?

"Our Values/Inclusiveness"

"we form and work in teams, characterized by mutual respect and support"

"Our Priorities"

"Provide a first-class workplace environment to our employees."

and don't forget

"Improve our cost effectiveness"

Anonymous said...

Corporate "personnel speak." No one of any experience or sophistication believes any of it.

Anonymous said...

"Corporate "personnel speak." No one of any experience or sophistication believes any of it."

True, but I think the commenter is just drawing attention to the obvious hypocrisy.

Unknown said...

I am Dee Kotla, if you were not in Plant or AIS you would not know what went on. The lab said I was fired for misuse of government property. I did change a disk from IBM to MAC for a retired employee with the permission of my supervisor Doug Ringle and Craig Ross so when this came out in court that I had permission the jury did not look at it as a violation. The second was that I used 4.30 dollars in personal phone calls over a 14 year period. These were calls home and local calls so the cost was 0 for a local call. Gabriel Odell the lab attorney who was sleeping with the Director of the lab tried to shut me up about testifying against the lab in the Kim Norman case against Charlie Brown who sexually harassed Kim over a long time. We addressed the problems with the lab but Charlie would not back off until Kim lost most of her hair and had lost her husband and her freedom because she was afraid to go out of her house. All lab employees in the Kim Norman case were represented by lab legal except me. I was told if I know what was good for me I would shut my mouth. While I was in deposition Gabriel Odell called Dave Siebal and told him I was a hostile witness. Siebel then took my personal accounts and locked me out of the system. I never used my personal accounts to log in because I was an admin of AIS systems and always used my admin login. Odell wanted my files on Kim so yes I deleted all files except Kim file because I knew I could restore all my files from the backup server. The 4.30 dollars are not even worth talking about. Dave Siebel was head of AIS did not like me because I was calling him out on how he was not treating women the same as men. Men got a lot higher pay than a woman. I would do this and put him on the spot in front of the whole department so he was trying to shut me up also. I did 2 trials and 8 years of hell but both times it was in my favor.

So say what you want about me. Unless you were there you do not know all the facts. I now live out of Ca. and love my life. As for the 2 million I received, I did not work for it so I donated to a lot of cherries like Government Oversight and others that are special to me like foster children, orphans, NRA just to name a few. I live on only what I worked for. I stood up for the principle of it not to make money. LLNL Sucks TRUMP 2020

Unknown said...

I am Dee Kotla, if you were not in Plant or AIS you would not know what went on. The lab said I was fired for misuse of government property. I did change a disk from IBM to MAC for a retired employee with the permission of my supervisor Doug Ringle and Craig Ross so when this came out in court that I had permission the jury did not look at it as a violation. The second was that I used 4.30 dollars in personal phone calls over a 14 year period. These were calls home and local calls so the cost was 0 for a local call. Gabriel Odell the lab attorney who was sleeping with the Director of the lab tried to shut me up about testifying against the lab in the Kim Norman case against Charlie Brown who sexually harassed Kim over a long time. We addressed the problems with the lab but Charlie would not back off until Kim lost most of her hair and had lost her husband and her freedom because she was afraid to go out of her house. All lab employees in the Kim Norman case were represented by lab legal except me. I was told if I know what was good for me I would shut my mouth. While I was in deposition Gabriel Odell called Dave Siebal and told him I was a hostile witness. Siebel then took my personal accounts and locked me out of the system. I never used my personal accounts to log in because I was an admin of AIS systems and always used my admin login. Odell wanted my files on Kim so yes I deleted all files except Kim file because I knew I could restore all my files from the backup server. The 4.30 dollars are not even worth talking about. Dave Siebel was head of AIS did not like me because I was calling him out on how he was not treating women the same as men. Men got a lot higher pay than a woman. I would do this and put him on the spot in front of the whole department so he was trying to shut me up also. I did 2 trials and 8 years of hell but both times it was in my favor.

So say what you want about me. Unless you were there you do not know all the facts. I now live out of Ca. and love my life. As for the 2 million I received, I did not work for it so I donated to a lot of cherries like Government Oversight and others that are special to me like foster children, orphans, NRA just to name a few. I live on only what I worked for. I stood up for the principle of it not to make money. LLNL Sucks TRUMP 2020

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