Nov 12, 2007

Livermore lab warns of layoffs

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Livermore lab warns of layoffs
By Betsy Mason, STAFF WRITER
Article Last Updated: 11/12/2007 07:26:59 PM PST

Just six weeks after a new manager took charge, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced Monday it will lay off of as many as 500 employees due to increasing costs.

At an all-hands morning meeting, lab director George Miller told employees that 2,000 of them would be given notice this week that they are among those whose jobs are in jeopardy.

Those laid off will be temporary workers with fixed-term contracts known as flex-term employees and supplemental labor workers hired through contractors including IAP Worldwide Services.

In addition to the impending 500 layoffs, at least 50 of these employees have already been let go, triggering the Warn Act which requires management to notify employees of the possibility of a mass layoff.

"The goal of our flexible workforce is to be able to release people as needed," lab spokeswoman Susan Houghton said.

The core workforce, which includes scientists and engineers, will not be affected by this round of labor cuts, Miller said, but may be included in potential future layoffs depending on the Department of Energy's 2008 budget.

"He told them we have a $300 million budget problem," Houghton said.

The shortfall stems from a number of things including increased costs associated with the change on Oct. 1 from being managed by the University of California, a nonprofit public entity, to having Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC, which is a partnership with the university and several companies led by Bechtel Corp.

"It really feels like a betrayal," said Sue Byars, a site planner at the lab. "We were pretty well assured that the new contractor saw ways to be more efficient and effective with the budget."

During the bidding for the lab contract, the Department of Energy claimed that bringing private industry into the management mix would increase efficiency and save money in addition to bolstering safety and security.

The new management anticipated costs would initially rise about $80 million, but that these costs would be overcome in years to come as the lab became more efficient. The expected costs included a $46 million management fee paid by DOE to the managers and taxes that the lab had previously been exempt from under the university.

But the actual cost increase is closer to $130 million, Miller told employees.

Other costs higher than unexpected include health care which is expected to be $20 million more because the lab alone is a smaller group than when it was associated with the university. More employees than anticipated chose the costlier of two retirement benefits options, and attrition has been lower than usual as employees wait to see if separation packages will be offered in the case of layoffs.

On top of that, inflation added another $50 million, she said.

Further adding to the problem, Congress still has not agreed on a budget for the DOE for 2008. Miller said he hopes to have a budget in January, but until then, the lab is operating at 2007 funding levels which are lower than the budget request for 2008.

The lab stands to lose as much as $150 million in federal funding, largely in nuclear weapons work. If this happens, the next round of layoffs could include as many as 300 permanent employees, Houghton said. The lab's goal is to protect scientific research positions, but it is not known if any scientists will be laid off.

The lab is looking at places other than labor to reduce costs, she said.

"But ultimately we're going to have to look at people because two-thirds of our costs come from labor," she said.

The workers affected by the current labor cuts will be notified by mid-December. Flex term employees are entitled to two weeks notice and two weeks severance pay. Supplemental labor contractors will not receive notice or severance.

"This is not an easy decision, and there is never a good way to let employees know they might lose their jobs."

Betsy Mason covers science and the national laboratories. Reach her at 925-952-5026 or bmason@bayareanewsgroup.com.

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

If the budget looks this ugly for LLNL, how much worse is it looking for LANL? LANS has been silent for too long now. They need to start talking to the staff, and fast!

Anonymous said...

From discussions over at "LLNL the Final Story" blog, it seems that LLNL staff were shocked to find out during Miller's presentation that their TSM rates have now rocketed up from about $300K pre-LLC to a new rate of around $400K to $600K per FTE. Sound familar?

Heckava job, NNSA!

Anonymous said...

"It really feels like a betrayal," said Sue Byars, a site planner at the lab. (News Story)

Welcome to the club! Oh, wait, I forgot. It's a very exclusive club and your not in it...

youtube.com/watch?v=vCojqV5dMkk

Anonymous said...

A much larger percentage of LLNL employees opted for TCP2 and that is hurting their budget. Here at LANL, most opted for the delayed gratification of TCP1.

Of course, whether we ever see any of the TCP1 pension money is up for debate. LANS has been very quiet about the true financial health of TCP1. I guess it's considered LLC proprietary information.

The real downside of TCP1 will be felt fairly soon, when LANS decides to start taking around 5% to 10% of TCP1 worker salaries. If you thought the measly 1% to 2% salary raises for this year were bad, just wait until LANS freezes next year's salaries and begins collecting the necessary funds to keep TCP1 afloat.

Anonymous said...

From the LLNL Final Story blog:

"What got me was the cost of each employee. It use to be $300K per person until LLNS took over. Now George tells us that for any person who makes a salary of $100K it cost the lab $400 - $600K out of the budget. Where in the hell does that money go?"

Sound familiar?

Anonymous said...

Way to go, NNSA! You took a system which kept our national lab scientists happy and cost you nothing in terms of worker pensions and almost nothing in terms of management costs for both LANL and LLNL and turned it into a huge operating liability by going "private". FTE labor rates for TSMs are now rising above $400K at both labs. Staff morale keeps dropping lower and lower with each passing month. Is this what you really wanted, NNSA? How about you, Mr. Congressman?

The stupidity of the transition becomes more apparent with each and every passing day.

Anonymous said...

doe/nnsa is a waste. Reagan was right in wanting to abolish it. Too bad he was distracted by air traffic controllers

Anonymous said...

Time to call in the lawyers. They gave us hell now lets give them hell.

I bet someone could find some loopholes that might get us out of the privatization of the labs.

Anonymous said...

1:05 AM ..."Time to call in the lawyers. They gave us hell now lets give them hell."

Now listen, Chris Chandler and friends at Legal don't have time for this. They have to go shopping for new fancy clothes and spend lots of time at Starbucks and at the Coffee Boothe.

Anonymous said...

While LLNL stated lower FTE rates than LANL, that was always a bit of a fraud. LANL included the cost of the Group Office in the oraganizational support tax. LLNL had the GL and Admin charge directly to projects. There were also a lot of other things that were in the LANL overhead that were direct-charged at LLNL.
The bottom line is that cost of doing a project at LLNL have always been very close to costs at LANL.

Anonymous said...

"The new management anticipated costs would initially rise about $80 million, but that these costs would be overcome in years to come as the lab became more efficient."

It's deja vu all over again!

Anonymous said...

> "The goal of our flexible workforce
> is to be able to release people as > needed,"

Are the Idiots in Charge aware that a "flexible workforce" is not one that feels any sense of loyalty to their employer, since the employer shows them none?

Is a "flexible workforce" at our nuclear weapons labs really in the National Interest?

Not only has the DoE/NNSA got its head up its butt, but so does Congress.

Anonymous said...

DOE/NNSA has mismanaged the LANS/LLNS management contracts with the net result simply being a transfer of budget that once paid for productive work to management contractor costs and profit. In the case of Los Alamos National Laboratory, the management costs increased from $8M to over $175M per year. The new managment contractors, contrary to their promises, have not delivered on promises to improve efficiency; to recover this astounding increase in the cost of management the new contractors are laying off thousands of laboratory staff members. These staff members have specialized nuclear weapon knowledge and in the interest of National security they shouldn't be sent out on the street.

This situation requires immediate Congressional intervention. DOE/NNSA should immediately renegotiate the Los Alamos and Livermore management contracts to reduce the cost of management in order to preserve the staff and protect the Nation's security.

Consider writing Congress.

Anonymous said...

What is most disturbing is Miller admitted that when budgets come in (if ever) it is expected the scenario that has been planned for is best case. He said it could be worse. He didn't say it might be better.

I wish you folks at LANL could have seen the presentation by Miller. If you guys think you have it bad you should have seen our director snivel and whimper for 45 minutes then exit stage right immediately following the presentation like a scolded mutt.

Anonymous said...

I bet someone could find some loopholes that might get us out of the privatization of the labs.
=======================================

EXTREMELY UNLIKELY!!! - give that it was
CONGRESS that mandated the privitization.

There's nothing in the US Constitution
that states that the defense national
labs have to be run by a public entity.

Barring that; our duly elected representatives
can manage the Government the way they
see fit.

Anonymous said...

8:41 AM,

Congress did not mandate privatization of the national labs, it only required that DOE put lab contracts out for competitive bids if a they had not done so before.

NNSA then came alone and for its labs (specifically LANL and LLNL) and required in the RFP a requirement for the bidder to be a separate entity from the parent companies (not necessarily stipulating private over public). NNSA also took out of the bid grading process weighting factors that would have given UC as a public entity an edge over a private entity - public pension, no state taxes, etc.

So since there was a forced "level of the playing field" between UC and private bidders, UC then decided to create a private LLC. The alternative would have been an LLC with UC as the only member and owner of - the approach Univ of Chicago took to bid on the ANL contract, and they also included private firms as subpartners in that LLC. This approach could have allowed the labs to remained public entities under UC, but would have exposed UC to more liability than a completely separate LLC.

Remember that LBNL was competed and is still run by UC as a public entity. And before you point out that LBNL's government owned facilities/buildings sit on UC land, the LBNL RFP had provisions for DOE leasing the land from UC if someone else had won the contract. There were no other bidders because no one could compete with UC's inherent cost advantage as a public entitiy.

Anonymous said...

Congress did not mandate privatization of the national labs, it only required that DOE put lab contracts out for competitive bids if a they had not done so before.
=========================================

All of what you say is true - but in all
that there is NOTHING that would allow
a lawyer to reverse the privitization.

The US Supreme Court has stated in
numerous cases - this is ALL within the
perogative of Congress and the Executive.

Congress and the Executive can manage
badly - but that is NOT grounds for
overturning their decisions.

If you want to reverse privitization in
the Courts - then you must have "standing"
and a "cause of action" to use the
legal terms.

There is ZERO "cause of action" here
for you to file a lawsuit on.

A judge would grant summary dismissal
for the Government on the first hearing.

Go talk to a lawyer.

Anonymous said...

The management of the labs can be reconfigured any time by Congressional action to rebid using academic contractors. They errored, they can fix the error.

Congress was in error supporting commencing "the war" in Iraq under dubious logic and selected facts, without fully considering "the peace" in this difficult part of the world. They will live with the error until they fix it.

The same is true of these contracts. But in the case of Iraq, they at least fired some of the worst when they got rid of Bremer and Sanchez immediately. I don't understand how the incompetent fivesome of Nanos, Bodman, Brooks, D"ag and Tyler Ps-bullshit are still employed.

The reason to return to academic, government management is that the continuing costs of private contractor management are $150M-$200M higher per year. Also, the quality of the deliverable will be higher.

This was well know to Bodman, Brooks, D'Ag and Tyler Ps-bullshit, prior to commencing the LANL transition. They just chose to apply Bush-think and ignore it.

They were a bunch of unknown losers then and are now well-known losers.

"You don't know good management until you've lived under bad management"

said by someone in NIF in 1999 and it is still true.

Anonymous said...

Is a "flexible workforce" at our nuclear weapons labs really in the National Interest?

Hell no! We are not running a fast food restaurant. The work done at LANL, LLNL, SNL, etc. requires experienced, dedicated, professionals. LLNL still has some chance of attracting such individuals given that in the event that they are layed-off there is other employement in or near the Pleasanton area.

This is not the case for LANL. The nearest possible employment for technical professionals is in Albuquerque which is 100 miles away. And, there really are not that many such jobs there.

SO, right now and for probably at least the next 10 yeare if and only if some success in straightening our this mess occurs, LANL is not going to attract any of the best and brightest.

Do we really want our nation's nuclear weapons to be designed by C students?

Anonymous said...

You all do know that DoD has had "rocket scientists" for a long time in the private sector. These RIF's suck yes, but we really are not that different from our DoD counterparts who've been going through these for years. This is the 5th ship I've gone down with. The other four only exist as parking lots, track homes or empty buildings. So, it could be much worse.

Anonymous said...

In addition to contractor fees LLNL now has extra costs of property and state sales taxes. In addition there are extra costs of higher health insurance and employee matching required. The total costs go beyond the $200 million that has been bandied about. In order to pay for these added expenses there are now layoffs which will result in additional costs for severance this year and the years to come.

Congress should investigate the responsible DOE officials and hold them accountable for this mess.

Anonymous said...

The reason to return to academic, government management is that the continuing costs of private contractor management are $150M-$200M higher per year
======================================

I agree that academic management would be
better. Unfortunately, academic institutions
perform the management as a "public service".
While I believe that is commendable, and
the way it should be; it creates a
"problem" for our politicians.

If there is some sort of "screw-up";
from an environmental insult to a
security breach - then the politicians
don't have anyone to punish.

Because of the low-fee, and public service
nature of academic management, the
Government indemnifies the University.

Congress wants to be able to throw a
"hissy fit" and punish someone by fining
them. If an entity is going to be
exposed to that type of retribution,
one has to pay them enough up front
to make it worthwhile.

The higher fees are just the cost for
Congress to be able to look tough and
throw their "hissy fit" in order to
look like they are doing something about
management misteps.

Actually, I believe it is money POORLY
spent. The citizenry shouldn't have to
pay for that type of Congressional excess.

Anonymous said...

6:40, just for future reference, please let us know where you are going if you wind up leaving LANL. ;)