Employees send in suggestions to cut costs

Set copiers to make double-sided prints. Reduce or eliminate binder copies of
reports. Reduce the number of color printers. Use alternative fuel vehicles within
the Lab fleet. These are a few of the more than 100 suggestions that come in to the
save-dollars e-mail at the Lab.

The Directors Office set up the e-mail to solicit employees suggestions, following
an announcement earlier this month that the Lab would go through significant
restructuring in the wake of budget shortfalls.
All suggestions go to a special kitchen cabinet led by Deputy Director Steve
Liedle, to look for ways to reduce Lab operating costs. The committee will consider
the various suggestions and communicate any actions via Newsline and News-
OnLine.

We are getting a number of worthwhile suggestions from our employees,
Liedle said. I encourage employees to continue providing their input to help our
Laboratory reduce its costs and become more efficient.

While many of the suggestions will take some study by the committee, Liedle
said there are a number of things employees can do individually to help the Lab.
The Laboratory is launching an effort to reduce energy consumption by 9 percent
below the 2003 level. Employees are encouraged to do their part by shutting down
computers at night, turning off printers and copiers, reducing the use of space heaters,and lowering office thermostats by a degree.

In the meantime, employees are encouraged to continue sending their suggestions
to reduce costs and energy to save-dollars@llnl.gov .

He told us back In September!

The president of SPSE told us and we did not listen; excerpt for the last Newsletter:

Message from the President—What We Know

We are mere days away from a revolutionary change, both as a Laboratory and as a Union. The private-sector transition will give the Lab new management and SPSE a new relationship to the Lab and its employees. This time recalls moments in history when people have been challenged to redefine themselves, and even the most influential suffer from troubled sleep. Here‟s what we know: as of October 1st we as private-sector employees will be governed by a different set of laws than before. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) will replace the Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act (HEERA) as the basis of our relationship to Lab management. Will we notice? For many of us—those who have never needed to press a grievance or protest the content of a performance appraisal, who have never sought and will never seek to publish a scientific paper that challenges the basis of a well funded Lab research program, who have never faced the prospect of discipline or layoff, and never will—the answer is no. When budgets are flush and managers act with maturity and integrity, rarely do employees need a safety net. That is the difference; HEERA provides a safety net of rights, but NLRA does not, in and of itself. For example, HEERA gives you the right to be represented by SPSE-UPTE (or anyone) in disputes with management, but NLRA does not, that is unless you‟re part of a collective bargaining unit. So consider the coming perfect storm. This year‟s budget is so uncertain that NNSA has requested a restructuring plan from all of its sites. George Miller (to his credit) leveled with us before the Deadline to Decide that the budget shortfall might exceed the Lab‟s ability to withstand without restructuring. Now consider that Lawrence Livermore National Security (LLNS) will be a start-up company, struggling from the very start to succeed with diminished resources. Consider that new business practices needed to make the fledgling company viable will take time to emerge and catch on. In the meantime, the managers and management structure of today will persist for some time to come, though today‟s public sector legal checks on bad behavior will not be there. So what has SPSE-UPTE been doing about this? Our focus as a union for the past year has been to organize as many UC employees into collective bargaining status as possible. We‟ve been in a race against time to 10/1/2007 when the rules for qualifying switch to private sector (and become much stiffer). What was the outcome of the campaign? Here‟s what we know: the 200 and 300 series employees that make up our historical membership base have not petitioned in sufficient numbers to gain collective bargaining for the Scientist and Engineer unit. The 500 and 900 series have signed up in large numbers, but will not likely reach majority by October 1st for the Technical Unit. The only group of employees to reach majority sign-up has been the subset of 800-series employees that make up the Skilled Trades unit. Who are they? They are the caretakers of the Lab‟s infrastructure. They are the ones who keep the lights shining and the water flowing. They keep the temperature tolerable and generally the whole damn ship of the Lab afloat. If you never have to think about your surroundings at work, they are a big reason why. I see it as no coincidence that as a group they have the most extensive experience with unions—both good and bad—and were the first to surpass the 50% mark. They filed for recognition back in June, but UC and LLNL management is refusing to recognize their petition, raising specious legal challenges to run out the clock. We‟re fighting back as I write this, through both legal and legislative channels. Rep. Ellen Tauscher herself wrote to George Miller twice, urging him to recognize the bargaining unit, or at least resolve differences with SPSE-UPTE by October 1 (see page 3). LLNL is doing neither, and on the legal front, quite literally, the jury is still out. More than once, when I‟ve asked them to sign a petition card, employees have demurred, saying “the Lab has been the best employer I‟ve ever had”. I heartily agree. I have had seven other employers in my lifetime, and LLNL tops the list. This has never been about showing or failing to show gratitude. Rather our campaign has been about holding on to what is good, and giving it permanence under the law. If this campaign fails, will we give up? No. It may take years to regain momentum under private sector rules, but we will persevere. For now, there is still a chance, and I‟m an existential optimist. I believe that we can wake up tomorrow morning and decide to go in a different direction. There‟s a petition card at the back of this Sentinel. If you haven‟t signed yet, consider that this is your best shot at stable terms and conditions of employment in the private sector. As a UC employee, this is truly your last chance.

Fire some, hire some

Contributed by anonymous:
The Laboratory is making some changes to its posting and hiring practices in the wake of workforce restructuring.

Tammy Jernigan, associate director of Strategic Human Capital Management, announced the changes in an interdepartmental memo.

All principal associate directors (PADS) will submit staffing/hiring plans to the Director’s Office to ensure the Lab proceeds cautiously with hiring activities. Jernigan said hiring will continue at a “very conservative" level and be monitored against hiring plans.

The Director’s Office will review and approve external hiring requests, including supplemental labor personnel. A lateral or promotional hire of an internal employee on a posted position, which does not effect a change in the employee’s appointment status, requires approval at the PAD and Strategic Human Capital level.

PADs have been given discretion to laterally reassign employees within the PAD in the same job family and pay grade, when it is necessary to facilitate workforce management.

Hire requests, and extensions of Lab associates and fixed-term retirees must include justification that directly tie to meeting immediate programmatic and transfer of knowledge needs.

Requests for an early conversion of flex-term to indefinite status should generally be postponed at this time.

An institutional brokering committee, chaired by Jernigan and Engineering Associate Director Steve Patterson, will review all postings to facilitate placement of employees currently in unfunded positions.

After the brokering review process, unfilled positions may continue to be posted internally and/or externally if a suitable candidate is not available. However, “internal only” postings will be limited to career indefinite employees.

For more information, contact Employment Division leader, 3-7904, or designated employee specialists.

questions that were never answered

Input from a blog contributor.. thank you:

Here is some information for all to review at will. It is a searchable .pdf file of all the Q&A that were on the LLNS website, you know the ones that they will not answer.


Download pdf file here

The list is being compiled!

Expect 600 contract and term gone by Jan 31st and in March 300+ FTE's. The numbers mumbled at the last meeting with SP was expect to see numbers like 2400 at each facility and then there is this. SP said two years ago I want that $2M used for EBA for projects and there will be no EBA lit after LLNS takes over. Well guess what. Now that in Dec we are going to have hundreds of HIS fellow engineers and scientist on the EBA list fully supported by the overhead funds the EBA list is not a "valuable tool". The tune really changes when it close to home doesn't it SP. But here's the kicker. Some FTE non degreed people are going to be booted and these engineers and scientist are going to be put in your place while they retain their ungodly salaries instead of being RIF'd. So there's justice for you.

It even gets better people.

Demographics is playing a part in this RIF. I just wanted you to know there are federal guidelines that must be followed and they are going to go by the rules.

Hanging it out!

Hanging It Out

Request: "I second the motion for a new topic regarding injustices, please Mr. Blog Master hear us out!!" No names please or post will be removed. Keep it simple if you can. This post has been paraphrased.

In reference to a post where someone asked the people of LLNL to take their lickings and keep on ticking I have to say this. Before we being to you ask people to grow up and take responsibility for their own actions and to “go with the flow in the face of every changing times”, we need LLNS to resolve a few issues first.

Lets talk about the injustice NNSA / DOE / LLNS have bestowed upon the people of LLNL throughout the years all of which many of us thought would be resolve within the first week of the take over by LLNS but to our disappointment nothing that LLNS has done has been to the benefit of the employee. It’s been all about “them”, who clearly display’s a “me, me, me” syndrome. I'll try to outline a few facts and keep it as simple if possible.

First of all I’d like to point out that LLNL management does have a choice on how to handle downsizing and cost cutting but as you can see they’ve failed miserably with their poor decision making and clearly practice assured survival of the management tactics. Now is the time for LLNS to make some changes that will impress the congress and senate, but before that can occur LLNS must first clean up the existing dilemma's that lie before us, before anyone will give them a dime for WFO. So the question that remains is, where should LLNS start. Let’s try this.

A large quantity of employees have learned how manipulated the system to acquire big pay raises and advancements and shortly afterwards went into cruise mode for the remainder of their career. I'm talking about those who were technicians at one time and then became supervisors. Once they made the transition they remained in their supervisor’s capacity for approximately five years; where at that time they rose to the top. After a short period of time as a supervisor they reverted back to their technician’s status, yet retained their supervisor’s pay.....

Then we have professional PhD who couldn't make it as experimentalist in the lab, did absolutely nothing for the good of science or the world and yet were consequently advanced to management positions where their salaries quadrupled over their Phd counterparts who by the way consistently could out perform the administrators many times over....

In conclusion my feelings are that LLNS can do better job. However, before this can happen LLNS must be willing to divorce themselves from the good old boy club and start kicking some ass in order to bring LLNL cost down. However I want to make it very clear. The problem is "AT THE TOP", not the "BOTTOM". It’s the worker bees that make things happen at LLNL_NOT_ the administrators. IMHO, people are not expendable commodities, but projects are. This philosophy is a complete contradiction to some, such as ( a manager ) who said “ I want that $2M dollars for projects, not people on the EBA list”, but then again if you examine where he is in the food chain you'd understand why. In managements case, it’s all about “them” and they are convinced that without them the world would cease to function. Bah Humbug Bubba. It’s layers of management that are expendable and should be the first to go.

December 3, 2007 5:00 PM

Keep the LLNL BLOG alive!

http://llnlthefinalstory.blogspot.com/ is gone.
This Blog replaces it. I wish we could have continued it, instead of starting all over.

Someone at http://lanl-the-rest-of-the-story.blogspot.com/ labeled the LLNL blogs as flaky.
The are a lots of inflammatory remarks by LANL people. They refer to us as "Livermites". See:

http://lanl-the-rest-of-the-story.blogspot.com/2007/12/disappearing-llnl-blogs.html
We are not interested in returning the favor. We want this BLOG to be a forum for exchanging opinions, passing on new information and exposing injustices, among many other things.
We know what happens at LANL will likely be duplicated on a different scale at LLNL. So, it pays to follow news on the LANL blog.
Here is an interesting article referred to by the LANL BLOG:

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/11/nuke-labs-blast.html