Lay Off the Layoffs

Anonymously contributed by a contributor who dropped this article as a comment in the
post "Is Lab renting space?".
I dont see the link to the topic; was going to delete it but decided it was interesting enough to turn into a new post (Hey contributor, use the new topic section, next time)

=== Lay Off the Layoffs (Newsweek, Feb 5) ===

Our over-reliance on downsizing is killing workers, the economy — and even the bottom line.

On Sept. 12, 2001, there were no commercial flights in the United States. It was uncertain when airlines would be permitted to start flying again—or how many customers would be on them. Airlines faced not only the tragedy of 9/11 but the fact that economy was entering a recession. So almost immediately, all the U.S. airlines, save one, did what so many U.S. corporations are particularly skilled at doing: they began announcing tens of thousandANyns of layoffs. Today the one airline that didn't cut staff, Southwest, still has never had an involuntary layoff in its almost 40-year history. It's now the largest domestic U.S. airline and has a market capitalization bigger than all its domestic competitors combined. As its former head of human resources once told me: "If people are your most important assets, why would you get rid of them?"

...Anyone who's suffered a layoff or watched a loved one lose a job can understand why downsizees exhibit increased rates of alcoholism, smoking, drug abuse, and depression. In economic terms, we should think of these as "externalities," just like air and water pollution, since many of the costs of these behaviors and ailments are borne by the larger society.

Despite all the research suggesting downsizing hurts companies, managers everywhere continue to do it. That raises an obvious question: why? Part of the answer lies in the immense pressure corporate leaders feel—from the media, from analysts, from peers—to follow the crowd no matter what. When SAS Institute, the $2 billion software company, considered going public about a decade ago, its potential underwriter told the company to do things that would make it look more like other software companies: pay sales people on commission, offer stock options, and cut back on the lavish benefits that landed SAS at No. 1 on Fortune's annual Best Places to Work list. (SAS stayed private.) It's an example of how managerial behavior can be contagious, spreading like the flu across companies. One study of downsizing over a 15-year period found a strong "adoption effect"—companies copied the behavior of other firms to which they had social ties.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/233131

====

Something to think about, esp. considering the previous LLNS layoffs and possible future layoffs to come.

And with which company do both LLNS and LANS have strong "social ties" to spread the "contagion" which Newsweek speaks of?

I guess in the case of LLNL and LANL that contagion would most likely be coming from Bechtel.

Former LANL blog readers should be welcome

Anonymously contributed:

I think we should welcome refugees from the LANL blog. As a sister lab, they may bring insight,intelligence, and a breath of life back into this blog.
1. ask the lanl blog owner to put a new post with a link to this site.
2. preface lanl specific topics with:
LANL:

Is Lab renting space to private companies?

Anonymously contributed:

I hear the Lab is trying to rent space to private companies. There seems to be more emphasis on providing a good place to do business, but the work does not necessarily have to be with the Lab itself. Maybe we can highlight our great lunch facilities.

Can anyone confirm?

GAO Calls for More Uniform Security Standards at U.S. Nuclear Sites

Anonymously contributed:

GAO Calls for More Uniform Security Standards at U.S. Nuclear Sites


The Obama administration should further standardize training and management protocols for security forces charged with protecting sites that hold weapon-grade nuclear material, congressional investigators asserted in a Government Accountability Office report issued Friday (see GSN, Dec. 23, 2009).

The U.S. Energy Department depends on more than 2,000 private contractors to safeguard six permanent sites for storing and working with plutonium and highly enriched uranium, GAO auditors found. The department has moved toward adopting training standards for the forces comparable to U.S. military instruction, but the six sites have progressed unevenly toward adopting key "Tactical Response Force" requirements, according to the report.

The facilities are the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico; the Y-12 National Security Complex in ennessee; the Pantex Plant in Texas; the Nevada Test Site; the Savannah River Site in South Carolina; and the Idaho National Laboratory.

The Energy Department last year deemed a potential federal security force to be an insufficiently cost-effective means of bolstering the security of the nuclear-weapon facilities. In an effort to lower costs, the department's National Nuclear Security Administration launched one program aimed at lowering costs by supplying common uniforms, weapons and other equipment for security forces (U.S. Government Accountability Office release, Jan. 29).

More beauracracy will improve the security of NNSA Sites?

Health spending accounts in 2010

Anonymously contributed:

This might be old, old, old news, but we only signed up for the SHPS health spending account this year. Having read the fine print, which defers to the IRS, I just found out from that venerable institution that kids under age 25 by the end of the tax year are covered for SHPS expenses under their rules---and the IRS is SHPS's Higher Power. All HSAs are tax-shelters, not health plans. (LLNS shouldn't even care since it's not costing them anything.) Might be of extreme interest to those employees with college-age kids, as LLNS cuts students off from all benefits on their 22nd birthdays!

Chu names Blue Ribbon Commission

Anonymously contributed:


U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu has announced the formation of a Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future. The commission, led by former Congressman Lee Hamilton and former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft will provide recommendations for developing a safe, long-term solution to managing the Nation’s used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste.

Ho hum…another Blue Ribbon Committee that will spend $millions with boondogles to Russia, Europe, etc. only to produce a report in 2 years that will most likely say we need to do more R&D. Do you think they’ll study the Yucca Mountain option?

This is how the current Admin supports nuclear energy without ever really expanding nuclear energy.

In 2012 a new Admin will perhaps restart Yucca Mtn.

NNSA Administrator D’Agostino to Brief Reporters on the President’s FY2011 Budget

Anonymous said...

NNSA Administrator D’Agostino to Brief Reporters on the President’s FY2011 Budget Request for NNSA Monday,Feb 01, 2010

National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Administrator Thomas D’Agostino will brief reporters on President Obama’s FY2011 budget request on Monday, Feb. 1 at 4:00 p.m. EDT.

Administrator D’Agostino will highlight NNSA’s commitment to managing the stockpile without nuclear testing, working with our international partners to secure vulnerable nuclear material around the world within four years, recapitalizing the nuclear security enterprise, strengthening our ability to recruit the next generation of nuclear security experts, and continuing the management reforms that enable effective stewardship of the taxpayer’s money.

February 1, 2010 6:16 AM