The Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration and the Livermore Site Office today posted a draft general workforce restructuring plan for LLNL and is now accepting both public and employee comments.
The plan, consistent with Section 3161 of the National Defense Authorization Act, is required whenever workforce restructuring may occur at a DOE defense nuclear facility. LLNL is the last of the NNSA laboratories and plants to have its plan posted. Both Los Alamos and Sandia posted draft workforce plans earlier this month. Once the public comment period has ended, the draft plan will be finalized. The plan does not address specifics to LLNL, but is designed to generically identify how such a plan might be implemented.
The plan identifies how the Laboratory would mitigate the impact of any potential workforce reductions among contractor employees at the Laboratory as well as on the surrounding community. The plan serves as a guideline tor DOE/NNSA to meet the changing missions and contractor structure at the Laboratory for Fiscal Year 2008 and beyond.
The draft plan is available on the Web at http://www.doeal.gov/WRLLNL/Default.aspx. Public comment on the plan is available through Nov. 5. Comments should be directed to Homer Williamson, Contracting Officer, NNSA Livermore Site Office, P.O. Box 808, L-293, Livermore, CA 94550; e-mail to homer.williamson@oak.doe.gov; or by fax to (925) 423-7668.
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26 comments:
OK, you win.
I give up.
I just read the entire restructuring plan.
My first impression is that it says,
"We, DOE, can do whatever we want. We will not put any details (such as mission, budget, scoring metric for retained personnel, retraining times for adequate employees, source of money for such retraining, what the nuclear mission of the US might be) in this plan."
To paraphrase the 1992 Galvin Report about LANL - 'If we ran Motorola this way, we would be out of business in a month.'
I thought of posting this comment anonymously, but the same things are going to happen however I sign it. So, what is the point to anonymity?
Following tradition, to get the LANL plan, change all the LLNLs to LANLs.
DOE is about to erase 30 years of pension obligations with a stroke of the RIF pen.
To those who sent in comments on the LANL plan:
Send in duplicate comments to LLNL plan. They could use the help - DOE treats LANL and LLNL like identical twins anyway. I'm going to send in complaints about losing Retiree Medical and a year of accumulated sick leave.
Well, I'll give you guys some credit -- eventually, you begin to see a pattern forming (*after* it's been slapped upside your heads a couple of dozen times).
Ref. for the obvious-impaired: DOE is dismantling LANL (and LLNL, and whichever other national labs used to exist before privatization began).
To ease this transition into reality, I'll restate the plan (using small words whenever possible):
1. LANL: Make the Pu pits
2. LLNL: Design the bombs that use the Pu pits
3. ORNL: Make the U stuff that will also go into the LLNL-designed bombs.
4. SRL: Make the other stuff that will go into the LLNL-designed bombs. Hint: it's a gas, whose name begins with the letter "T".
Note: There is no WFO anywhere in this plan. Nor are there any of the nice benefits that used to exist prior to the makeover.
SRL is Sandia River Lab?
No, no no no no.
Sandia will not be a part of this plan (too much WFO going on there, you know).
SRL: Savanah River Lab, soon to be more commonly known as SRP(lant).
I'll bet there are a lot of people out there who went TCP-1 that now wish they would have gone TCP-2, at LLNL. I guess the message wasn't clear enough.The message is loud and clear. They, meaning NNSA are going to cut the labs by 50% over the next sevne years. I think LLNL and LANL should plan on a RIF every Oct 1st for years to come.
Uhhhh... you people are acting like there is something in the LLNL plan that wasn't in the LANL plan or the NTS plan or...
It's the same plan. Why in heaven's name it took LLNL another two weeks after LANL's was released for comment is beyond me.
Good question but what I want to know is why was LANL plan to NNSA rejected. Was it because the cuts in personnel were not deep enough in order to make the complex 2030 requiements. What is the final number of people that are going to have to be let go immediately? It is still 2,500 to start with in 2007 and then again in 2008. I would expect that what ever happens at LANL, LLNL should expect the same. There really no work there neither especially with all the people that LLNL has on the EBA list, like 200 engineers and who know's how many other people are on that account. Now that's efficiency to the max. All sitting around waiting on the holidays to come and the RIF hammer to drop.
I took a look at the LLNL draft plan and as I see it it will work for any size of RIF and is intended to be apply on an ongong basis. There is no discussion in the plan as to the number that will be "effected". Seems like a one plan fits all CYA for DOE, NNSA, LLNS, LANS. Did I miss something?
"It's the same plan. Why in heaven's name it took LLNL another two weeks after LANL's was released for comment is beyond me."
Does the phrase "best and brightest" come to mind? They be bright, but that don't mean they got common sense.
"Good question but what I want to know is why was LANL plan to NNSA rejected."
This question has already been answered. It may not be the answer you wanted to hear, but it's a fact. Washington wanted to enable Lab works that were terminated the option to transfer their years of Lab service credits to the military, just in case they wanted to continue serving their country in Iraq. So there's your answer, again. This is precisely why the plan was not approved. I know this for a fact because I was there.
--proverbial fly on the wall
It's not that I didn't want to hear it, 8:24, it more that I refuse to believe that even LANS would try something that stupid. Your "version" of why the first plan was rejected sounds like a Republican troll.
Well yesterday the Senate majority leader estimated the overall cost of the war in Iraq now approaches $650 billion since the March 2003 invasion that toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. That doesn't include the cost of "major combat" that ended in March 03, and the $650 billion was not anticipated for in Bush's war plan. So the NNSA and its labs are going to help fund the war effort by taking deep cuts in their budgets. There's no other way to come up with this much additional money in the US budget.
"homerwilliamson@oak.doe.gov" is not the correct e-mail address to send comments to.
The correct e-mail address is:
"homer.williamson@oak.doe.gov"
The web site left out the "." between the first and last name.
I learned this this morning when my mail server told me it didn't recognize the address.
I changed it in the post. Thanks!
The Galvin report was issued in late 94 and recommended that LIVERMORE be closed. It was not "about LANL" but the entire complex. Had the recommendations of the Galvin commision been followed then LLNL would no longer be a "weapons lab" and LANL would have focused on maintaining the small scale science and engineering which has always been it's principal (only?) real strength.
Dare I stay on topic?
Objections to the LLNL restructuring plan.
1. NNSA representatives stated during the first year of the transition every LLNL job would be preserved.
2. Against the observation that there isn't sufficient funds even in FY08, I raise the bullshit flag.
DNT has a record GSO carryover. NIFs 2011 startup objectives can be delayed due to the negative impact of the transition, allowing procurements to be delayed, funds preseved and the "favorable but unfair" burden rate reductions to be eliminated.
It is a matter of LLNS management preference, not fact, that a RIF is needed at LLNL this year.
If NNSA/LLNS does not honor its commitments to its employees, it has no reason to demand its employees keep their commitments.
More on the inappropriate timing of the workforce restructuring plan.
It is happening too soon for anyone at LLNL to have a clue how to do it successfully.
1. We don't know our rates.
2. We don't know our costs.
3. We don't know our funding.
Under these uncertain conditions program managers must be extremely conservative, lowballing any manpower allocations. But this is short-sighted, since those experienced employees let go in November will not be available to surge to meet late mission objectives mid-year when the programs are crying for help. NIF is the worst practitioner of resource management by the seasons.
LLNS hasn't even made it through one yearly cycle yet to fully comprehend how to operate in the new environment, and it is forced to make unknowable predicitons.
LLNS has only operated LLNL for three weeks!
LLNS management doesn't have a track record,they haven't done a thing. LLNL is proceeding on inertia. How the hell can their estimates mean anything?
They might as well have monkeys throw darts.
George and Mike,
Please offer us 3+3 so those who know how the zoo is supposed to run can stop suffering.
It's almost as if... the RIF was planned long before LLNS took over, and they are simply a tool for executing it. Wow, I just blew my mind!
The time "delay" in LLNL's 3161 General Plan getting approved had nothing to do with LLNL -- it was strictly up to NNSA HQ. They controlled the approvals, where the plans would be posted and when the information would be released to the public. LLNL had nothing to do with the timing and from what I heard, they actually wanted to go at the same time as LANL.
"George and Mike, Please offer us 3+3 so those who know how the zoo is supposed to run can stop suffering."
Haven't you guys been told like a hundred times there will be no incentive linked to any retirement plan?
10/24/07 12:29 PM
It was planned before the LLNS take over. The only reason they didn't do the RIF a year ago when LANS took over LANL is so that the LLNL employees didn't see the damage and have a 100% TCP-2 work force. They let all of you believe there was going to be no changes until after you signed over your UCRP pensions and then they cut off your balls. All that's left now is to bleed to death. It's going to be a long slow death until the first of next year at which time you should see more than 1000 people go between retirees, term, dead weight and those who just are going to get RIF'd regardless of the cause. I would expect to see no less at LANL. The bottom line is that NNSA is going to cut the work-force at all facilities and it will be done long before 2030. Much , much earlier. This is only phase one.
There's an interesting e-mail floating around LLNL written by a very prominent fly on the wall. In summary it says that the five musketeers at the top of LLNL upper level management are in fact thinking about taking their pay raises away from everyone this year and use those funds to pay for debts accrued by no fault of the employees to the tune of $130M and that's just the known cost.
One can only assume that the employees pay raises are going to be used to pay for all of the people on the EBA list now in excess of a few hundred people all milking the overhead account numbers until the cows come home instead of being instantly sent out the gate. It's also to pay for taxes due from LLNL now that we are private, bonus checks for upper level management, overhead cost per employee, and many more things that the average employee doesn't give a rats ass about, now or in the future.
Of course George the company man is going to sell this bowel of BS to the employees as 'a choice' they have to make. The employees can give up their pay raise or possibly give up their jobs. Gee, again they are going to rape you of your earnings. First they took your UCRP and got 51% to fall for the ploy, then they offered you a RIF in return, but if you'd just give up a little more we may even let you keep your job. Lets see how many idiots we have this go around.
The bottom line is no matter what you say or how you vote NNSA is going to down size both labs at warp speed and it's going to be done long before 2030 at a much more aggressive speed than anticipated.
I personally want this BS over with and I want it over with now, now two to three months from now. my feelings are that if we're going to have a RIF to assure adequate down sizing, then lets down size in a fashionable manner that will allow LLNL and LANL to avoid this event on a year to year basis. If we're going to cut 2,500 to 3,000 people then lets get it done FY-2008 and move on. People are not going to work well in an environment where they have doubt that they'll be here for only a year. The stress is not worth it and it will kill you, unless that too is LLNS plans so they don't have to pay your 401k or TCP-1 pension.
"Haven't you guys been told like a hundred times there will be no incentive linked to any retirement plan?"
We've been lied to so many times the only thing for sure is LLNS will tell more lies.
The name should be Lawrence Livermore Lies
"Haven't you "guys" been told like a hundred times...."
So which of the ladies in human resources is being paid to beat us down here. Is that you Jadis? Here to kill hope?
I am enjoying watching what truly bad management looks like.
Between NNSA and LLNS there will be a Harvard Case study done on how to destroy national assets quickly.
We don't need to bomb Iran. Have Bodman and Miller volunteer to run their nuclear establishment.
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