--Gussie
Update, 6:14pm -- Folks, go down to Smith's and buy the biggest grain of salt they have in stock. You're going to need it to take with some of the other rumors that have come in on this post. You've been warned.
____________________________________
Word just in! LANS is asking DOE to do away with the 120 days to conduct the RIF. LANS just figured out that 120 days + 60 days = 180 days. To much money to wait for a RIF added with the nine months insurance, severance packages, etc.
64 comments:
This actually makes sense with regard to reducing the scale of the RIF. They have already made up thier minds about who the trouble-makers, aka "RIFFEEs," are so they don't need 120 days to make up the list.
here at LLNL a DL tried to calm his techs saying they have 120 days from oct to go find a job or go on the EBA list. what a joke! we are all at will employees
Hey, but what about that Fall Festival! I can't wait to socialize with Mikey and the senior executive team members.
Oh, wait, I forgot -- I've got a job interview that day.
Someone had asked about the 60 day thing earlier in the WARN Act Resources Post.
From AM 114, Reduction-in-Force, 3/7/07
.03a - RIF candidates are given at least 60 days prior written notice of the effective date of termination.
however, under .08 - ...
(1) Pay in lieu of notice of termination. When approved by the Laboratory Director, up to 15 calendar days’ pay may be paid in lieu of notice.
C'mon 3:54, on a Saturday?
Yes, on a Saturday. McDonald's is open 7 days a week.
It has been confirmed that Lillian Rael, the head of community relations, just resigned today. Apparently, she was reluctant to participate in charming and smoozing the community leaders regarding the LANS plan to screw us out of jobs and in the RIF situation, decreasing the benefits in WARN Act. It certainly seems that LANS will stop at nothing to decrease our benefits.
Good for Lillian. It sounds like she might have some class.
THIS JUST IN!!!
Someone has seen a memo to be issued by Doris Heim tomorrow that the Laboratory is announcing a voluntary separation package with the goal of obtaining 7% to 10% of the workforce to leave voluntarily. The payoff - a severance package based on the number of years of service, subject to the 39 week cap!!! This will fulfill their requirement to do voluntary actions before involuntary and what do you think - DOE will buy it as meeting that requirement?? Need to call your representative or senator asap!!!
and I hear Bill Zwick is being demoted from Central Training Division Leader... and I also heard the lists have already been made up and were made up over the summer.... so its just a waiting game now....
3161 is law and cannot be circumvented.
Can this be done legally, " Asking DOE to do away with the 120 days to conduct the RIF."? Does anyone know for sure. If that be the case maybe LLNL will want to adopt this policy too since they've had their list of rifeee's compiled for months. Maybe they too can execute the RIF sooner than Jan 2nd, 2008 as we figured the bomb shell was to be dropped. Let's Get-R-Done and over with. I am tied of waiting.
I know someone that received notice from their Group Leader today regarding the "Voluntary" RIF which is to begin immediately!
Hey 6:13 -
I am not an attorney but I do know that Bechtel has much brighter attorneys than DOE so this way to get around 3161 is just slimy-Republican tactics. If you read 3161, you can read between the lines and get "good faith effort" with regard to voluntary efforts prior to involuntary.
"3161 is law and cannot be circumvented."
Who said anything about circumventing. They can come up with a "wish list" and follow 3161 as required. In fact, it would appear that LANS can do anything they f-ing want to. Just be sure to give Mike & Co. a big fat hug and kiss at the going away party ... uh, I mean company picnic.
Bill Zwick?? Isn't he the one who came up with the 5 minute course on how to drive on Pajarito Road during materials transport and then sold it to management? Everyone at LANL, even folks without access to Pajarito Road had to take the course. How much money wasted on that could have been spent on LANL's mission?
"Everyone at LANL, even folks without access to Pajarito Road had to take the course."
How can one work at LANL and not have access to Pajarito road? All you need is a badge.
not sure where convoy training came from but it was moronic... a product of white rock training center and some "manager." it was good for a laugh anyway
7:00 pm clearly meant people who don't have any reason to go down Pajarito. Thanks for being a overly literal jerk.
FYI - The FY96 restructuring plan
www.gjo.doe.gov/documents/6_benefits/2_wf_restructuring/1_wfr_plans/losalamosfy95_96051995.pdf
Mangled the link...just Google
section 3161 workforce los alamos
This just in.
Residents of los alamos, in a panic over the RIF, are turning on each other, using vicious language and accusations, making up stories, and promoting rumors to the status of fact.
In other words, nothing has changed.
That is all.
The link's not mangled, just part of it is not visible (thanks blogger.com). Triple click on it to highlight the whole thing (including the part you can't see), the cut and paste as normal.
Foreign nationals can't access Pajarito road.
Re: convoy training for everyone, this was done so that roads no longer have to be closed to do this. The reason everyone had to take it was that while access is controlled on Pajarito road, there is no badge swipe access. If you have a badge, you can drive on it. So there is no way of knowing who might encounter a convoy and need to know the new rules. On balance, it is a good thing because they will no longer close the entire thing. 5 min reading the little document or the time waiting for the road to open or driving around.
Get a hold of yourselves, people. Seriously.
Yep, the hazardous transport training (5 min) was done in an agreement with state DOT, to allow the roads to remain open during transports, instead of closing them for an hour or so each time. It was a one time thing, but some appear to prefer having the roads completely closed to traffic. You snooze, you loose.
It wasn't 5 minutes to read a document. It was all the folks who had to drive to WR to take it at the training center because they did not have admin crypto card access. Stupid. If it was such a simple thing to read a short pamphlet, why wasn't that done at the group level.
There are lots of people who now commute on buses. I'm sure they enjoyed the hassle of getting to a training center to take a 5 min course.
The way it was done was wasteful. And when someone points how money is being wasted, the person is treated like crap. It all adds up - 12000 people taking this course is 1000 hours of wasted time, assuming everyone took it at their desks. Since that wasn't the case, add on 40 minutes to drive to and from WR for everyone without admin access. This becomes a big deal.
They quit closing the roads for an hour several years ago. They rolled the road closure along with the transport.
And it was not the DOT that requested the class. It was DOE, and the only way to prove that you took it was if you had admin access on your crypto card. If not, then you got to waste money and time to take the course at a training center. And of course most people had to drive to WR.
People who commuted up had to use government vehicles to drive to WR to take the course. So fuel and time were wasted.
DUMB.
6:13- Just because something is "law" doesn't mean it can't be circumvented. Only inexperienced idealists would ever make such a claim.
Wandered a bit off topic here. Amazing - post is about getting laid off, and people whine about a silly little training course. Priorities folks, priorities.
Just don't get them started whining about LDRD, 11:18 -- you'll never get back on topic.
Or daycare, for that matter.
Be a lot more money for salaries if it wasn't wasted on training people and dumb courses.
Overhead would be a lot less.
Employees would know they were working for a top flight organization instead of one that is so safety and security happy that nothing else gets done - including cleaning bathrooms and emptying trash.
And only paranoid psychotics assume that LANS runs the planet and can circumvent public law.
Maybe LDRD is daycare.
Speaking of day care, there's no way LANL is going to get a place uptown to operate for day care for free. Move's afoot already to make sure that LANL pays the going rate since that's what other day care providers have to do. Any deal with the LAPS are not going to fly - not while LANL is in RIF mode.
Don't think so 9:38. Guy in the office next to me is a foreign national.
6:04, it will have to be good. Makes sense of course that LANS would want people to leave voluntarily, and just as importantly to leave ASAP. If I had over 30 weeks already, I'd just wait to be rif'd until Jan+. Get a few more months on my 401k non-match too.
Ed Rodriguez is also leaving the Lab. (For all the LDRD queens out there, he's the WT Division Leader.) Really a shame, he's a good man.
I agree 9:00. Ed's one of the best.
MCFOD just announced that Fred Crawford (BWXT import) is retiring at the end of the month. Supposedly they're going to blow apart MCFOD.
So take heart, comrades, someone must have heard our screams.
AM 114 specifies the severance pay a RIFee would get. If the incentive is no better than the AM 114 amount, why would anyone leave (unless, of course, they were leaving anyway)?
it's also rumored Doris Heim-Arrhoid is leaving end of year...
I agree with 6:04 and 10:26, now if the new leader will just dump the Central Training Idiot Chief of Staff, the group leaders and remaining staff can get their jobs done!
LANS might be planning to offer the current severance deal to volunteers, with the understanding to the rest of the staff that our current severance policy will soon be drastically scaled back after the "volunteer" offer has passed. Since severance is a policy, LANS can make changes to it with little warning.
Zwick %$#*&... what the fuck!!
He used to be the asshole group leader out at TA-55...NMT-10 if I recall. He was such a total pompus prick. He hired the cutest ladies to be his group admins and then slimed all over them. I hated everything about that man. I had assumed he was fired or moved to a new non LANL job, but had sure as hell thought he had left the damn lab.
I must say that he is now at the top of my RIF list!
I would suggest that there is a raffle for the opportunity to RIF him. I would buy a buttload of those damn tickets and start practicing my "get the hell out of here" message to him.
I gotta go to Baskin Robbins right now for a great big bananna split to feel better after reading he is still around!
6:14
"I would suggest that there is a raffle for the opportunity to RIF him."
Seems like a way to raise money for the annual United Way fundraiser.
I'll bet a record haul could be made doing this.
Subject: LOS ALAMOS SITE OFFICE CRITICIZED
LOS ALAMOS SITE OFFICE CRITICIZED
IN INTERNAL SAFETY OVERSIGHT REVIEW
A National Nuclear Security Administration internal
review has turned up several deficiencies in the safety
oversight and assessment processes at the Los Alamos Site
Office. According to a draft copy of a Chief of Defense
Nuclear Safety review released last week by the Project on
Government Oversight, many of the safeguards to ensure
implementation and maintenance of the nuclear safety
management rule at Los Alamos National Laboratory were
"not implemented effectively" and that "continued improvement
in most functional areas" was warranted.
While acknowledging that the site office has recently
improved its performance, the Aug. 9 "Headquarters
Biennial Review of Site Nuclear Safety Performance Los
Alamos Site Office" found that only four of the 14 nuclear
safety oversight and assessment processes reviewed met
expectations: packaging and transportation, quality
assurance, criticality safety, and radiation protection.
According to the review, there were five areas of significant
concern, including oversight of contractor training
and maintenance. Also cited were:
- Significant gaps that exist in meeting National Nuclear
Security Administration requirements in the
areas of formality of operations, engineering, maintenance,
training, quality assurance, and safety basis;
- Staffing in several key areas found to be lacking,
including conduct of engineering, contractor training
and qualification, safety basis, facility representatives,
maintenance, and fire protection;
- Key federal personnel that are not trained and qualified
because of a "self-described personnel “churn" at
the site office; and
- Assessments that have not been conducted to find out
why federal oversight failed to ensure adequate
implementation of nuclear safety requirements at the
lab.
"The aggregate of the above concerns represents a significant
weakness in the LASO capability to accomplish its
mission," the report states.
NNSA Working To Improve Oversight
NNSA officials would not comment on the draft report
specifically, but a spokesperson said one of new NNSA
chief Thomas D'Agostino's top priorities is increasing
federal oversight of the labs. "We take safety and security
very seriously," NNSA spokesman John Broehm said.
"There are a lot of different things he'll be doing as new
administrator to take care of that." The draft report went
on to recommend that the Los Alamos Site Office receive
external assistance from the NNSA. "The number and
significance of the identified issues are of particular concern given the current state of flux within LASO," the
report says. "The manager was recently selected, several
key positions are in an acting status, and numerous staff
functions are understaffed."
Sounds like the Los Alamos Site Office has a lot in common with Iraq.
Let Zwick get demoted. They'll put him someplace to keep his salary. Just like Stanford. Couldn't cut being FWO DL so they made him a special adviser to McQuinn (as well as Sutcliffe). They got to keep their big salaries. Then Ramsey couldn't cut it as the Emer. Ops DL. So they put Stanford in there. And move Ramsey to be a special advisor. Yarbro couldn't cut it as NMT DL so they put Schreiber in and make Yarbro a special advisor to replace Stanford. Same salaries though. They remove Hayes as Infrastructure Planning DL but no one wants her because she demands to keep her salary. So she stays in IP but in salary only.
And I hear that FODs will go from 9 to 7. They'll combine Hutchton and Mason. And Johnson will pick up some additional buildings and Crawford will lose some.
Back to the topic a bit ... I am curios as to what kind of communication are people getting from their management. For example, McMillan has been walking around and talking to people in his organization. Novel concept - he has actually has been INCREASING the amount of communication to the workers in his organization. I understand this is not the case other organizations at the Lab. Perhaps we can get a thread going about how our management is handling change and the bomb that Mike dropped last week.
Back to the topic a little more: I am hearing that the voluntary separation package is going to target specific areas. Sounds like the RIF has already started?
What areas?
All the Management losers wind up in the CA office (Contract Assurance). Take a look at the LANL phone book results. Look for yourself. When you get to your office and are on the yellow net do a Phonebook search on CAO-* and you will be enlightened. There are 90+ people in CAO. Quite a few are known losers. That whole bunch needs to go. Would save quite a bit of $$$$.
Response to 11:34 - I do not know what areas, this is the rumor I keep hearing. I can not see how LANS could pull this off, but it sounds like something that our Human Resource Department would sit on and hatch. I was hoping another blog could confirm or deny the rumor.
For example, McMillan has been walking around and talking to people in his organization.
Yes, let's review the bidding on McMillan's talk to the troops last week.
'I won't tell you anything more than the Director told you.'
'I don't know.'
'I can't answer that question.'
'That's a good question.'
If it was supposed to be informative, helpful, or comforting, it was none of these. What a colossal waste of time.
IMO, targeting specific areas with an incentive would be suboptimal. I think LANS should open any incentive they come up with to everyone and have a small, but reasonable, window of availability. Everyone gets a chance to decide what to do. If offered to everyone, then everyone can potentially be placed on the RIF list if not enough people leave voluntarily.
Again, IMO, since I'm not a lawyer, if LANS offers an incentive to people in specific targeted areas, then it would appear LANS risks lawsuits if they later RIF others not in that area without offering an incentive. LANS would also seem to risk lawsuits for making a decision to put someone in a targeted group when they could have arguably put them in a non-targeted group, and vice-versa.
Let the chips fall where they may. If someone leaves that is really desirable, then they can be rehired. Rehiring is much easier than getting people to leave. (I have heard, but am unable to confirm that a substantial number [not all] of the people let go in the 90s wound up working again at LANL. I know two personally.) There are people just waiting for an incentive. If LANS excludes them, they'll have missed an opportunity. LANS (I assume) grossly misjudged how many people would leave at the transition and during this past year. LANS needs as many people as possible to leave voluntarily, and quickly.
5:53 - I agree with you. I can not see what is to be gained by binning the incentive. The numbers that Anastasio mentioned make it clear that a large number of volunteers are needed if LANL is to avoid another 1995 type RIF.
I don't think you'll hear much more about the exact layoffs plans until the 120 day clock expires sometime in late January. Note that Mike threw out the number of "2500+" because, regardless of the final budget numbers, LANS will be making substantial layoffs in the hope of getting some budgetary 'elbow room' for future years. You can bet they don't want to revisit this messy RIF process in FY09. The plan is to clean up our budget problems this next year by reducing the workforce levels so we can be done with it for awhile.
Hey 3:30 PM, at least McMillan said "something". I have heard NOTHING from my AD or my DL.
I'm starting to see homes in Los Alamos that were for sale for many months now being taking off the market.
Looks like some sellers in town are giving up after Mike's recent RIF announcement. The real estate market in Los Alamos has come to a complete halt and will likely be that way for a long time.
11:52, prices are still too high given the situation. I still see prices in the high 200s and low 300s for POS's in WR. Asking prices for some stuff in LA border on delusion.
Who in world would want to sattle themselves with a morgage with a RIF number of 2500 hanging in the air. I'll keep my double wide until I find something nice on the list of forclosures in the area. I have a feeling there will be quite a nice selection within the next year.
I'm with you 8:26, so we wait. I do have a high level of confidence that if this exercise can be f*cked up in some manner, it will be.
Hmm, 5:12 PM. How about this one: LANS decides to execute the layoff without any consideration of a TSM's performance scores or sources of funding. Instead, the targeting method is to go after organizations and groups and simply wipe them off the LANL org charts. Anyone in the targeted organizations is suddenly a RIFee without a job unless they can find a taker somewhere within LANL, which will be next to impossible given the RIF environment. LANL's scientific diversity actually decreases after the RIF is done. No support or upper management staff is touched in any manner by this little exercise. Only the scientific staff is affected. Slackers in protected groups get a free ride. Labor rates for TSMs increase after the RIF is done.
Think of it as a means of preparing the ground for our fabulous Pit Factory future.
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