A national laboratory must keep an expert research staff and well-trained technicians to take on projects whose scope, risk, and lack of immediate return make them unattractive to private investment. The required levels of experience, expertise, and dedication will not be provided by a staff of scientific temporaries. It is not to save the jobs of a few old fuddy-duddies that SPSE strongly opposes the Director's proposed layoff policy. These changes increased term appointment limits to 5 years, removed requirements that an appointment could be extended only once for a maximum of 1 year, and applied the policy to all job classes instead of just 200 series jobs. State Law Violated Tarter approved these changes without seeking any employee input.
State law requires that employee input be considered before adopting policy changes.
LLNL did not reveal the new policy to employees until months after its adoption. SPSE learned of the changes in August. In the meet and confer, LLNL's representatives said that the policy changes did not affect persons already employed and that, therefore, they did not solicit employee comment. SPSE responded that the new policy shut off job openings for unassigned career employees. We produced data showing dramatic increases in term jobs following adoption of the policy change, and corresponding decreases in career jobs listed in the job opportunities bulletin.