A
number of interesting things have happened since the last update.
I
asked John Cammidge for a status report. His answer was:
Joe, I
have completed some of investigation but I need some more answers to some of
your comments before I reply. Can you give me until the end of the month?
I
didnÕt expect instant gratification so the end of the month looks OK to me.
____
DOE
Secretary Chu has decided to recuse himself from some aspects of the National
Laboratories. I havenÕt been able to find exactly what he said so I only know
what is in the news reports. The decision caused minor changes in the
draft letter to him.
I am
also preparing a draft letter to the President of UC to use in case we donÕt
get a satisfactory response from John Cammidge. It will have a lot in common
with the Chu draft.
___
President
Obama is considering moving responsibility for nuclear weapons to DoD in the
2011 timescale. I have no idea of what that would do to us but I doubt that it
would be to our advantage.
___
One
of you has pointed out that Retiree medical benefits are not uniform across UC
campuses. That shoots down the idea that the Livermore campus should get the
same benefits as other campuses. If any of you know the process by which
funding is determined for each campus please give me the details. My new
assertion is that they should treat us like retirees from a campus that they
had to close.
The
TCP1 description ( Web Site Link: LLNS Compensation 7/12/7) says the following:
ÒMaximum
UC Contributions: Service-based (100% of maximum employer
contribution
after 20 years or hired pre-1990, 5% increments between 10-20
years,
50% with 5-9 years AND age & service of 75+, 0% under 5 years.)Ó
ÒMember
Contribution: Difference between Gross Rate and maximum UC
contribution.Ó
That
implies UC provides a fixed sum for each employee and that is its contribution
to each individual. That canÕt be right or those of us without
Medicare (there are 327 of us) would be paying a lot more.
___
Some
follow up on several items is in order.
I
have had no suggestions for naming our group, so I have invented a name. We are
now the University of California Livermore Retirees Group (UCLRG). The UCL is
in line with UCB and UCLA. The G was chosen because I canÕt claim we are
organized as in organization and aggregation is to hard to spell.
___
The
web site is being updated frequently. If you had trouble getting to it between
the 2/6 and 2/9 It was probably my fault. Other than that period it should have
been available.
___
I am
going to set up a database of UCLRG members. Attached is a questionnaire file.
Please fill it in, copy it, click on the link below, paste it in the body of
the email and click send. All information is optional so only answer the
questions you deem appropriate.
___
The
idea of collecting signatures for petitions to appropriate persons met with
much more enthusiasm than I expected. That means that I will try to get as many
signatures on the letters. With the help of another refuge from Computations.
who prefers not to be mentioned, I have a draft copy of a letter to
Secretary Chu. It is at the end of this status report. Please read it over and
let me know if you have problems with it. There were various of
suggestions about how to go about collecting signatures.
0.
Set
up a central collection point in areas of high retiree concentration and invite
people to come by. For example, in Livermore set up a signing table in the
parking lot where Nob Hill moved out across from the old library where there is
plenty of parking space. People could come by and sign up at their leisure.
0.
Have
people host a signing and let retirees make appointments to come by and sign.
0.
Have
people go around and collect signatures from retirees that canÕt come to any of
the other signings.
0.
Set
up an outreach table at the Pleasanton Farmers Market and solicit signatures.
This
is one of those items I will need help on. We need to know where people live to
organize it. That is one of the reasons for the database.
___
On
the legal front Richard Epps is trying to find us a lawyer. He is trying to get
Gwilliam, the lawyer who filed the age discrimination suit against LLNS.
Several of you mentioned him as a candidate but I had no luck with him.
Hopefully Richard will have better luck.
___
A
Òfireside chatÓ has been scheduled with Congressman McNerney. I am planning to
attend and see if I can interest him in helping us. There are several
more house members we should also try to influence. When I find out the
distribution of UCLRG members I will be better able to identify those whose
districts have a number of members.
_____________________________________________________________________
Draft
letter to the Secretary of the Department of Energy.
The
Honorable Steven Chu The Secretary of the Department of Energy
U.S.
Department of Energy
1000
Independence Ave., SW
Washington,
DC 20585
Dear
Mr. Secretary,
We,
the undersigned University of California (UC) retirees, who were employed at
the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) site, believe that the
Department of Energy (DOE) has illegally transferred control of our promised retiree medical benefits, to Lawrence Livermore
National Security LLC (LLNS), the successor contractor now managing LLNL. LLNS
did not exist until long after most of us retired. Before retiring none of us
had been employed by or had any legal relationship with LLNS. NNSA
placed a requirement in Contract No.
DE-AC52-07NA27344 that LLNS provide medical benefits to us. We canÕt
conceive of any legal basis for allowing LLNS to control the medical benefits
we receive. A contract between NNSA and LLNS has no legal effect on UC or
its retirees, since neither is party to the contract. It therefore canÕt affect
the legal relationship between UC and its retirees. UC promises employees who
received UC medical benefits immediately prior to retiring that they will continue to receive UC medical benefits
after retiring. The contract between NNSA and LLNS does not void that promise.
Having
recently been the Director of Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), you should be aware of the commitments
that UC has made to its UC employees at LBNL with respect to retiree medical
benefits. UC made the same commitments to us. The UC web site currently promises
UC retiree benefits for those retirees that were receiving medical benefits
immediately prior to retiring. NNSA asserts that we are not UC retirees
but LLNL retirees and that they are free to define the medical benefits we
receive. LLNL is a facility, not an employer, so there arenÕt any LLNL
retirees. UC employed us and assigned us to work at LLNL, so we are UC
retirees.
DOE
Directive N 351.1 instructs DOE Contractors to minimize any and all retiree
costs that they legally can. It went into
effect March 1, 2008 for LLNS. We believe that this Directive is driving the changes to the medical benefits
provided by LLNS. It is clear that NNSA is attempting to retroactively apply
DOE Directive N 351.1 to us. The UC-DOE contract (W-48) termination section
required DOE to pay any unfunded UC liabilities that arose from terminating the
contract. The fact that DOE is reimbursing LLNS for our medical benefits
shows that DOE believes it is bound by those terms. However it is reimbursing LLNS
rather than UC as the contract required. DOE committed to funding our retiree
medical benefits prior to 351.1 being put into effect so it should not be
applied to our medical benefits.
Application
of Directive N 351.1 was suspended at LLNS for a year after it was issued. That
allowed the contract between LLNS and NNSA to specify employment terms for
transferring UC employees and medical coverage for UC retirees which
would not have been allowed without the suspension. Some of us believe the
delay was to allow NNSA to use bait and switch tactics, aka Total Compensation
Package 1, to lead UC employees and retirees to believe the transition would be
business as usual. UC employees learned that was not true when layoffs began
shortly after the transition even though the contract required that every UC
employee in good standing be offered a job. Retirees were not affected until
open enrollment for medical insurance last fall limited our options and
increased our costs as the first step in an LLNS three year plan, presented at
LLNS medical open enrollment meetings, to eviscerate our medical benefits while
significantly increasing our costs. It is this type of behavior that causes our
lack of trust in NNSA.
We
solicit your aid in transferring control of our medical benefits back to UC
where it legally belongs. We are aware of your intent to recuse yourself from
some Laboratory issues. If this is one of those issues, we request that you
choose a neutral DOE party outside of NNSA with appropriate knowledge and legal
expertise to review our situation. We believe that NNSA
is a major part of the problem and should not be the reviewer. We are working
to convince UC that the DOE-LLNS management contract doesnÕt provide a reason
to cede control of our medical benefits to LLNS. Currently John R.
Cammidge, UC Acting Associate Vice President Human Resources and Benefits, is
representing UC in doing a review of our situation. A co-operative effort on
the issue by UC and DOE will be needed to fully address the issue.
Joe
Requa, UC Retiree, is acting as spokesman on our behalf and is our contact
point. He has set up a web site at http://home.comcast.net/~jrequa/retiree.htm
that gives a more detailed description of the problem we perceive, links to
relevant documents, status reports on our activities and related newspaper
articles.
Joe
Requa
563
Brookfield Dr.
Livermore,
CA, 94551
(925)
443 0120