We at Livermore were complaining about the 26 weeks vs 39 weeks that LANL received (maximum values for us old farts). We should feel better now that Y12 gets shafted.
Check out Y12 voluntary incentive:
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/feb/19/y-12-announces-buyout-plan/
Instead of getting a week's pay for every year of service, which is the severance package offered to laid-off workers, the employees who accept the voluntary separation plan will get 70 percent of that total.If this keeps going, the last site in the complex will require those who want to leave to pay DOE/NNSA for the privilege of leaving. This may signal the return of the indentured slave.
"It was disappointing that B&W management at Y-12 decided to cut our (voluntary separation plan) benefits, when other facilities - Sandia, Livermore and Los Alamos - get their full amount," said Matt O'Hara, who has worked at the Oak Ridge facilities since 1979.
He was referring to the three design labs that, like Y-12, are part of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex and facing personnel cuts to meet budget restrictions.
"We are the only facility in the country that gets our severance pay cut, and we don't even get a cost of living on our pension plan," O'Hara said Monday.
Bill Wilburn, a spokesman for B&W, said the incentives package was approved by the U.S. Department of Energy.
- Anonymous
DOE/NNSA has a simple message to the many loyal workers at their weapon complex facilities. It goes like this:
ReplyDelete"F*CK YOU! You'll take what we give you and like it. Most of you won't even have a job in the coming years, so STFU!"
Seems that many of the DOE/NNSA contract workers are slowly beginning to decipher this simple message. A few more rounds of cuts should ensure that the message is received by all. The NNSA facilities are no place to be planning a long term career. It's sad to watch this happen.
I agree with the previous post.
ReplyDeleteThe DOE doesn't give a shit about their laboratory employees.
Before long they will be outsourcing nuclear weapons design to North Korea and Iran.
Only a fool would accept employment
at a DOE laboratory.
Note only salaried employees with more than 10 years' service are eligible. Sounds like they are trying to get rid of the old folks.
ReplyDeleteLower costs. Better quality.
ReplyDelete1:25 may be on to something.
One WFO option DOE needs to look into is design services for North Korea, Iran, and others. It'd make a hell of a web page. Who wants to set it up?
ReplyDelete"Your full WMD solution"
6:12
ReplyDeleteWon't be long before that solution finds a problem. All DOE needs to
do is keep the shaft in for just a bit longer.
Employees at DOE sites have the worst employment reality - they don't work for DOE (federal civil service status) or the Contractors (their status is tied to a site/facility and not a real company). I've never heard of an employee beginning their career at a DOE site and then working their way up the corporate ladder into the executive suite of the parent company running the site.
ReplyDeleteThat's happened at LANS (and now LLNS), although the process can hardly be called "working your way up."
ReplyDeleteAt LANL/LANS ist's called $$CK UP, MOVE UP.
ReplyDeleteMissing the point folks.
ReplyDeleteNobody who worked at LANL under UC is going to get promoted into the Mother Ship and become a Bechtel VP. Not even the ones who have been stagnating at the top of LANL for years (Mangeng, Marquez, etc).
"Nobody who worked at LANL under UC is going to get promoted into the Mother Ship and become a Bechtel VP."
ReplyDeleteNo, but scads of higher level managers who currently work for DOE/NNSA plan on getting lucrative jobs as VPs over at Bechtel and BWXT.
They'll be well rewarded by the corporates for the time they spent mis-managing the weapons complex. Guys like Tom D'Agostino should make out particularly well.
Well, the cost of each employee is a problem at LLNL; way too expensive. The people that built the Labs are the targets, read those with senority, not the term or supplemental labor (the "flexible workforce"), not those that boosted the cost up through the ceiling - think any of those assholes drove the cost up are going to get laid off? My gut tells me NO WAY!
ReplyDeleteYou may or may not know this, but the Contractor Management is following their policy, which allows them to provide VSSOP serverance "UP TO" the serverance for an ISP. Unfortunately, Contractor Management changed their policy to allow this ...See:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.yso.doe.gov
/News_Releases/2007
/Restructuring_Amendment.pdf
Bottom line, LLNS,LANS,etc can reduce the serverance policy for a VSSOP or ISP any time they want !!