Domenici says new spending deal will prevent more job cuts
12/16/2007
U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici said Sunday that a spending agreement regarding Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories should avoid additional worker layoffs at the New Mexico labs.
The plan would also eliminate a controversial weapons program called the Reliable Replacement Warhead and sets the number of plutonium pits manufactured at LANL to 80 a year.
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Full Story: http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/More_layoffs_unlikely_at_N_M__labs
18 comments:
This puts LANS in a very tough position - LANS can no longer portray layoffs as being driven by House budget cuts. LANS will have to come clean; the only reason layoffs are needed is to pay for LANS profit and LANS manager's bonuses.
12/17/07 7:53 AM
Good point but the bottom line is that there will be more layoffs no matter what the reason.
Yes, Mike has already said this last week. LANS must think ahead ...
So that's it, huh? Just totally ax the RRW program.
I'll bet the "additional layoffs" are phase 3.
Phase 2 is coming no matter what.
I want a real number of how many Bechtel employees have been 'moved' to LANL payrolls in the last year. We know that there were 15 or so out of the original top 20 ULM- but how many others?
50, 100, 500 Bechtelites??? Come on Mike, this is a hard number which you can state for the record.
In the Tery Wallace meetings, he shows a slide justifing LANL RIFs because of only 40 departures for 2007. (180 left vs. 140 new hires in his directorate =40 departures net).
It seems like for every person who leaves- they pull in one or two cronies...
This spending deal is likely off the table if the the omnibus spending bill is derailed.
8:44, to be blunt, it really doesn't matter what info you want. LANS will decide what info you get and when you get it.
In this morning's New Mexican there is an article stating that no further job cuts will be needed at LANL and Sandia in the immediate future. Senator Domenici stated that most of the cuts asked for by the House of Representatives have been restored by means of a little horse trading, no RRW and lots of plutonium pits made. In the Christian Science Monitor, there is an article suggesting that this budget compromise is mostly smoke and mirrors since there is not the money to pay for it.
If you try to track down the details of the compromise and what the compromise might mean for the future of Los Alamos, you find a nice article on Fox News , which leads to the actual 1,400 plus page compromise bill that was passed early this morning (House Rules Committee ).
You also find that a current member of the House Appropriations Committee is Tom Udall. Next year, he will not be on this committee, and thus have no say in its spending. This is probably not good for New Mexico.
Can anyone make sense of all this complexity for me so that I can make a prediction for myself about what might happen to budgeting at LANL in the next few years?
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My original writing of this comment included all the appropriate hyperlinks. This writing can be found at workingatlanl.blogspot.com/
with the hyperlinks active.
I would have put a version of that posting here with active hyperlinks if I knew how to do it. Copy and paste inactivates the links. Can anyone help me get active links here?
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This puts LANS in a very tough position - LANS can no longer portray layoffs as being driven by House budget cuts. LANS will have to come clean; the only reason layoffs are needed is to pay for LANS profit and LANS manager's bonuses.
12/17/07 7:53 AM
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LANS management has never had this position. They have always maintained that LANL needs to align its operating dollars per employee to be more in line with Sandia's operating dollars per employee. (Never mind that the major reason that it's not is because of the high overhead costs associated with large, both in dollar amount and in shear numbers, of upper management.)
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I want a real number of how many Bechtel employees have been 'moved' to LANL payrolls in the last year. We know that there were 15 or so out of the original top 20 ULM- but how many others?
50, 100, 500 Bechtelites??? Come on Mike, this is a hard number which you can state for the record.
In the Tery Wallace meetings, he shows a slide justifing LANL RIFs because of only 40 departures for 2007. (180 left vs. 140 new hires in his directorate =40 departures net).
It seems like for every person who leaves- they pull in one or two cronies...
12/17/07 8:44 AM
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In a meeting with ISR Division, Terry Wallace answered that question. 220 Bechtel, Washington Group and BWXT employees have been brought into LANS. I doubt that any were brought into TSM positions. Which means they were brought into very high paying upper management positions.
9:47 - Terry the BIG liar will deny that he ever said such a thing. Then he will deny that he denied such a thing ...
12/17/07 8:23 AM,
From the House Appropriations FY 2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act detailed summary on Energy & Water Development subcommittee:
Weapons Programs: $6.3 billion, the same as 2007 and $214 million below the President’s request.
• Reliable Replacement Warhead: Prohibits the development of a reliable replacement warhead until the President develops a strategic nuclear weapons plan to guide transformation and downsizing of the stockpile and nuclear weapons complex.
Doesn't D'Agostino roll out a "a strategic nuclear weapons plan to guide transformation and downsizing of the stockpile and nuclear weapons complex" tomorrow?
The concept of Workforce Restructuring is to:
(1) Get rid of the positions you no longer need, so that you can...
(2) Hire and keep the types of positions you need for the future.
It isn't directly connected to budgets. Therefore, you can expect LANS will proceed with Workforce Restructuring over the next few years until it has the workforce makeup that it feels is necessary for LANL's future.
"Domenici and fellow negotiators, for example, restored $418 million of the nearly $600 million slashed by the House for weapons activities at the three nuclear weapons labs"
That leaves $182 million in cuts for NNSA weapons work. Does this mean we are still headed to the Whitehouse budget with about $80 million in reductions directed at LANL? And, if so, what does this mean for Phase 3 layoffs?
So far everthing is as clear as mud. Sen. Domenici put the ball in Mikey's court, with the statement: "No additional layoffs need to occur." If the funding level stays at the 2007 level, the cost of inflation may require another 500+ positions?
2:43, let me introduce you to 1:27. Discuss.
The budget ain't the only thing behind the workforce restructuring.
Damn straight, 11:05. It's called profit margin!
"220 Bechtel, Washington Group and BWXT employees have been brought into LANS. I doubt that any were brought into TSM positions."
I know there were quite a few Bechtel (BN) employees transferred from the NTS to LANS - many were in the Construction Department - Field Engineers, etc. These are not "very high paying upper management positions". I believe you're overly paranoid.
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