Livermore Lab staff secures pensions

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Jul 13, 2007 | by Betsy MasonSTAFF

After much protesting by Lawrence Livermore Lab employees about the downgrading of their gold-plated retirement benefits under future corporate management, a better deal has been forged.

A team of California and New Mexico Congress members,

led by Rep. Ellen Tauscher,

D-Alamo, have pushed the Department of Energy to change key provisions in its pension plans for Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National laboratories.

"This is a huge victory for our security and for the lab employees who have devoted their careers to keeping us safe," Tauscher said in a statement Wednesday.

The new benefits still won't be as generous as those enjoyed by lab workers under University of California management for decades, but the benefits won't take a 20 percent hit as was planned.

Under the new plan, when the new manager takes over Oct. 1, Livermore workers will be given the same benefits as Los Alamos workers currently have under their new corporate manager, rather than lesser packages as was planned.

Both lab management contracts were put up for bid by the Department of Energy after a string of security and safety lapses sparked intense scrutiny from the media and federal lawmakers. Both labs will be run by newly formed corporations run by UC along with several corporations including Bechtel Corp.

One of the reforms that had been part of the new management contracts was a switch to retirement benefits tied to current corporate standards.

Because average corporate benefits have dropped since new management took over Los Alamos lab a year ago, Livermore employees were set to get pensions worth less. Now benefits will be the same at both labs through June 2008 when they will be reassessed and set at 105 percent of the corporate standard at the time.

The National Nuclear Security Administration, the semi- autonomous branch of the DOE that oversees the nuclear weapons complex, received more than 4,000 comments on benefits in less than two weeks during a comment period that ended July 2.

"We are committed to making sure that we have the fairest, best package possible for employees," NNSA spokeswoman Julianne Smith said.

The deal will give lab managers a say in the selection of corporations to base the benefits on, which will presumably result in more favorable choices for workers.

In June, Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, co-signed a letter with Tauscher and others to Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman expressing concerns about planned benefits.

McNerney said his office was receiving more than 10 calls and e- mails an hour on this issue, and several hundred people showed up at a meeting he held July 2 to hear employee concerns about their benefits. He said younger employees gave him the impression that they were ready to leave the lab over the issue.

"The real concern is that if they don't offer attractive benefits, they aren't going to be able to attract and retain the caliber of personnel needed to assess national security issues," McNerney said.

Representatives Barbara Lee, D-Oakland; Mike Honda, D-Campbell; Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo; and Dennis Cardoza, D-Atwater, also signed the letter. Tauscher also had led several meetings with Energy Department officials on the matter and wrote a second letter to Secretary Bodman along with Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein and New Mexico senators, Democrat Jeff Bingaman and Republican Pete Domenici.

Contact Betsy Mason at (925) 847-2158 or bmason@cctimes.com.