Aug. 24, 2000

Last years Salary Policy Committee

I am writing this letter to set the record straight as to my experience on last year's Salary Policy Committee. I think that the group of people who came together to try and improve the way salaries are determined at the Laboratory were the finest group of people I have ever worked with at the Laboratory.

Mark McMillen says in his Aug. 16 letter that we should not let the "SET pigeon hole us into an average ORC" Then he goes on to say that "I believe that the Salary Policy Committee is made up of union supporters." Who is pigeon-holing whom? It is important to understand that the Laboratory's Salary Policy Committee has been disbanded since January and is no longer meeting or making any recommendations to management concerning salaries.

The decision of John Browne to mandate an average ORC from 6-7 was not based on any input from the Salary Policy Committee in my recollection. There were some performance measures discussed (average ORC being one of them) to grade managers on how well they are implementing salary decisions. But the average ORC was not even the most important of those measures.

UPTE did meet and provided recommendations to management concerning this year's salary exercise. In addition, UPTE informed management that mandated ORC quotas given to group managers would run counter to a merit pay system. Management wrote back and stated that they agreed and would revise the policy that mandated or forced distributions at the group vice peer group level were not to occur and said they would inform all the managers of the Laboratory. UPTE stated in writing that it was categorically opposed to ORC quotas.

We can all see how well management listened. There is a choice to be made here. One each and every employee at the Laboratory can make now. We can continue to allow the managers of the Laboratory to make arbitrary decisions that affect our lives and the lives of our families, or we can join together and have a voice in those decisions. A voice management cannot refuse to listen to. The choice is yours. Contact UPTE at LANL@upte.org if you prefer to have a voice in salary decisions.

--Cordell Meyer


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