Retiree Group Hires Law Firms
By The Independent
The UC Livermore Retiree Group
signed contracts with three law firms that will analyze its legal situation as
it continues to hope to persuade the University of California to readmit
Livermore Lab retirees to its health plans without the need for court action.
The three law firms deal with
labor, employment and administrative issues. Two firms are local:
Sinclair Law Office of Oakland and Carter, Carter, and Fries and Grunschlag of
San Francisco. A third, Stember Feinstein Doyle and Payne, is an
investigative legal organization from Pittsburgh, Pa.
They will advise the group on
the strength of its legal claims, the kind of relief that might be available,
and the possibility of various kinds of agreement.
To provide some of the material
that the firms will analyze, UC Livermore Retiree Group head Joe Requa has
asked Laboratory retirees to search their personal files for anything bearing
on the issue of UC retiree health care coverage: letters, brochures, job
offers, employee handbooks, policy statements.
Original documents are most
valuable, but the law firms can work with copies if necessary, Requa wrote in
an email. ÒThese materials are very important and may play a pivotal role
in evaluating the strength of your case,Ó Requa quoted the law firms as saying.
He is hoping to collect the documents in the coming week.
Livermore Retiree Group has now
raised $78,000 towards legal expenses, Requa reported. This is more than
the law firms are said to be charging for the analysis alone. However,
remaining funds may be important if Livermore Retiree Group files suit.
The group has stressed that it
hopes not to have to sue. It has briefed University of California Regents
and met with UC attorneys in an effort to win accommodation outside the courts.
Lawrence Liveremore National Lab
employees and retirees were covered by the UC group health plan under a
succession of contracts that lasted more than 50 years, but ended in 2008, when
a new contractor took over Laboratory management from University of California.
At the time, the new contract promised continued benefits that were
Òsubstantially equivalentÓ to UCÕs. However, the new contractor changed its
basic premise a year later.
The new health coverage arrangements have emphasized individual plans that retirees see as less secure and likely to become much more costly as they get older.