For Immediate Release
October 22, 1998
SUMMARY
The Society of Professional Scientists and Engineers (SPSE)
last week appealed an unfavorable decision regarding its complaint
to the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) that
the University of California (UC) has unfairly changed the working
conditions of its employees at the Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory (LLNL).
DETAILS
LLNL has been operated by UC under contract with the US Department of Energy (DOE) or predecessor agencies throughout the Lab's nearly 50 year history. LLNL employees are UC employees and highly value that relationship. In the fall of 1996, SPSE learned that in July 1996 UC had divorced the policies governing LLNL employees from those governing other UC employees. UC did so without asking LLNL employees for comment, leaving those employees unaware they were being disenfranchised from UC. California law requires UC and LLNL to notify employees and solicit their comments before changing personnel policies affecting employees' wages, hours, or working conditions.
In response, SPSE filed an Unfair Practice charge with the California PERB in October of 1996. That legal step was meant to force UC to reverse the actions it took without employee comment, and to serve as a visible point of resistance to unilateral UC initiatives. SPSE's attorney Andrew Thomas Sinclair argued the case in a hearing before Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) Fred D'Orazio. In September 1998 the ALJ dismissed the charge, before the end of the hearing, asserting SPSE had not demonstrated that the policy changes affected wages, hours, or working conditions of LLNL employees.
SPSE respectfully, but strongly, disagrees with the ALJ's decision. SPSE's Executive Board has voted to appeal the ALJ's decision to PERB in the expectation that the PERB board will accept SPSE's arguments.
If SPSE wins the appeal, the case will most likely be returned to Judge D'Orazio for completion of the hearing. If SPSE eventually prevails, UC may have to roll back LLNL personnel policies to July 1996 and resubmit the changes for employee comment, including the primary change of divorcing LLNL employees from UC-wide policies. If UC prevails, all LLNL employees will have lost significant standing as UC employees and as participants in personnel policy making.
LLNL employees have already experienced damages to their working conditions since July 1996. For example, LLNL has introduced a new category of "at-will" employees that replaced a previous concept of term employees who had a fixed appointment term. The "at-will" workers lack a stable term of employment and access to the grievance process available to other UC employees. LLNL employees are witnessing the erosion of protections of free speech and intellectual freedom, and the loss of other rights and privileges inherent in being UC employees.
While pursuing the California labor law avenue, SPSE is also calling on public officials, legislators, and DOE, to investigate the public benefit, if any, caused by these policy changes. Is this increasing separation from the main fabric of UC consistent with UC accepting the management contract for LLNL? Does this separation of policies diminish the public's access to oversight of the nuclear weapons enterprise, as stipulated by Congress? Do these actions serve only short-term management convenience while hollowing out an important national resource?
For further information, please contact Kalina Wong, President, at (925) 423-3727; William O'Connell, President-elect, at (925) 422-8789; or Bruce Kelly, Grievance Committee Chair, at (925) 423-0640.
| Chronology of the Unfair Process | Statement of Exceptions | Brief in Support of Statement of Exceptions |
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