Tuesday, March 06, 2007

 

New LANS Policies

Pat,
This is absolutely for anonymous posting.

-Anon
--------------------------------------
LANS has just released 2 key policies related to discipline. Here s few excerpts:
From IPP 731.0, Discipline, Issued 3/5/07

This IPP applies to:

▪ All LANL employees with regular appointments, except those at the level of Associate Director and above, and probationary employees.

It is the policy of LANL that employees will follow appropriate workplace conduct, follow LANL policies and procedures, and maintain the public trust. Degrees of corrective action and discipline are considered to ensure that the employee has the opportunity to correct his or her performance and/or conduct, when appropriate. Depending on the situation, any step in this policy may be repeated, omitted, or taken out of sequence. For serious offenses, suspension or termination may be the first and only disciplinary action taken. The manager must consult with HR-ER before issuing a written counseling or any form of discipline (reprimand and above).

Appropriate action will be determined on a case-by-case basis based on factors such as severity, frequency, degree of deviation from expectations, mitigating circumstances and the employee’s overall record.

When an employee fails to meet established standards for appropriate workplace conduct, attendance, performance, or violates LANL policies, it may become necessary to initiate a discipline process.

Conduct that may result in corrective or disciplinary action includes, but is not limited to, the following:

▪ Absenteeism or tardiness;

▪ Insubordination;

▪ Harassment;

▪ On-Site Gambling;

▪ Failure to exercise appropriate judgment;

▪ Violation of law or LANL policies, procedures, instructions, or requirements;

▪ Unsatisfactory job performance;

▪ Dishonesty, theft, or misappropriation of LANL funds or property, including the inappropriate procurement of goods and services;

▪ Security infractions or incidents; or

▪ Other conduct that adversely affects LANL’s business and/or reputation.

Comment: aren’t several of these “conducts” new such as insubordination and the blanket “other conduct that adversely affects LANL’s business and/or reputation.

No wonder they exempt Associate Directors and above. Their actions to lose the RRW competition most-certainly adversely affected LANLs business and reputation, didn’t it?

Quite the change from the broad "Academic Freedom" policy we enjoyed under UC for 60 years.

And, here’s a lovely new policy

From IMP 791.0, Complaint Resolution:

Filing a Complaint:

To be considered under the CRP, an employee must file a CRP complaint form within thirty calendar days of the date on which the employee knew or reasonably should have known of the alleged employment action that gave rise to the complaint.

Wow. So, you have to file your complaint 30 days from the ACTION. What a loophole for management. They just have to wait 30 days from you violation to dispense discipline (or even let you know you’re under investigation), and you lose all rights or abilities to appeal.


Comments:
WOW !! This certianly sounds like a well defined list of threats..."Lack of proper judgement"..this could certianly be conscrewed as an "action that management deems as inappropriate"and could end up with our termination..."At Will" gives our esteemed management the power to intimidate, abuse and fire anyone whom them deem unacceptable...watch out, from this day forward you will walk on egg shells...if your group leader does not like you or appreciate any of your comments, they now have the power to "Screw" you like youv'e never been "Screwed" before. And all of this in the name of reducing the workforce. It would be better and much more professional to just have a massive rif, instead of this, "Spanish Inquisition" type of method......As my favriote commentator used to say "Good night and Good luck"...
 
Hey, is this a great place to work, or what!
 
After reading the new directive regarding the new policies, I must ask myself: "Do I really want to continue my employment at Los Alamos National Laboratory"? As a 20 plus year veteran of LANL, I have been through many different Directors, through the Cold War, managed to survuive the funding up's and down's , made it throught the "Tiger Team" visits, and now I am faced with fear of being intimidated, told that my behavior (however interpetated by my management) could be grounds for my dismisal. I feel pressure just by reading the policy, knowing that any little ego-manic manager now has the power to ruin my work-life if he or she choose to. I must admitt that I need to do more soul-searching to see if I can continue my employment under these new conditions.....
 
Get used to it, boys and girls, or leave. LANL has no friends and plenty of enemies.

You may expect absolutely no sympathy from the outside, nor any relief from the current hostile environment fostered by LANS. This is what DOE, NNSA, and Congress want it to be like at LANL.
 
So are the "best and the brightest" still at LANL?

If so, are they really the "best and the brightest"? I have my doubts.......
 
Los Alamos has passed the tipping-point, and we saw it go by just over this last weekend.
First, the RRW fiasco.
Now, the random drug inquisition.
The definition of "tipping-point" for those of you familiar with chaotic systems (Fermi, Pasta, and Ulam did that stuff at LASL in the 50's, for you youngsters) is one Lyapunov time into the strange attractor, from which point there is no reversibility.
Doom, in other words.

I'm packed and gone. You may see or hear me in the distance from time to time, but I'm Doppler-shifting into the red sunset.

-Son of Oppy
 
Ah yes... the corporate world.

It’s a fairly good prediction that the lab will very soon be all over the news again for all the wrong reasons. Given that the lab was handed over to a for-profit contractor (and LLNL is destined for that as well) it is interesting to discuss what another prominent institution has gone through after being “competitively sourced”
(http://tinyurl.com/25u8ml)

I’m talking of course, about Walter Reed. According to this article,
(http://tinyurl.com/ytmklb)
a Walter Reed internal memo (apparently ignored by the hospital’s top brass) describes how the Army’s decision to privatize support services at Walter Reed Army Medical Center was causing an exodus of “highly skilled and experienced personnel”. Walter Reed also awarded a five-year, $120-million contract to IAP Worldwide Services, which is run by Al Neffgen, a former senior Halliburton official.

If “IAP Worldwide Services” rings a bell, it’s because it should: They are best known for the problems it encountered delivering ice during the response to Hurricane Katrina.

I took the following paragraph verbatim from this article:
(http://tinyurl.com/289bph)
The common perception of Walter Reed is of a surgical hospital that shines as the crown jewel of military medicine. But 5 1/2 years of sustained combat have transformed the venerable 113-acre institution into something else entirely -- a holding ground for physically and psychologically damaged outpatients

Hmmm – what other venerable institution as hitherto been described as a “crown jewel” (of science)?, what other venerable institution has experienced an exodus of highly skilled and experienced personnel?

So, lab-mates rejoice! We are all now managed by a for-profit consortium made up of this company:
http://tinyurl.com/2b3mjv
together with the company who supervises these guys:
http://tinyurl.com/254o5g
 
Actually, this is language that is in UC directives predating LANs. And the thirty days is from the date of the "employment action," not your action. That means you have thirty days to file a complaint from the time you're told by your employer what disciplinary action will be taken against you. I believe that is also consistent with UC's historic grivance and admin review processes.
 
From IPP 731.0, Discipline, Issued 3/5/07

"This IPP applies to:

▪ All LANL employees with regular appointments, except those at the level of Associate Director and above..."

Could someone please post the policy that applies to "those at the level of Associate Director and above"?

Especially regarding:

▪ Failure to exercise appropriate judgment;

▪ Violation of law or LANL policies, procedures, instructions, or requirements;

▪ Unsatisfactory job performance;

▪ Dishonesty, theft, or...

I am more than curious.
 
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