Second in a two-part series exploring the history of the
university’s affiliation with nuclear technology laboratories.

Following Congress’ 2003 decision to reopen bidding for the
management of three Department of Energy weapons labs previously managed by the
University of California, the UC Board of Regents voted to form limited
liability corporations with several other companies and submit bids for the
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory — a
decision 87-year-old Herbert York, LLNL’s first director and UCSD’s first
chancellor, called a “dumb idea.”

The new arrangement between the D.O.E. weapons labs and the
UC system was decided in 2003, after each lab was marred by allegations of
mismanagement earlier in the year. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
discovered accounting irregularities, and Los Alamos National Laboratory
underwent an entire managerial overhaul and was accused of making improper
payments. Following the scandals, the D.O.E. and Congress decided to open the
bidding process for the labs.

“It may work out; I just don’t know,” York said. “But right
now I’m not at all optimistic about the new arrangement … a limited
arrangement, from my perspective, is … totally unnecessary, and based on a lot
of ideas about [UC] management that weren’t correct.”

Though the UC Regents won the bid to continue managing LBNL
in 2005, they voted to form private limited liability corporations with other
companies in order to bid for LANL and LLNL. Los Alamos National Security,
formed by the UC system, Bechtel, BWX Technologies and Washington Group
International, won the LANL contract in 2005. Similarly, Lawrence Livermore
National Security, formed by the same companies and including technology giant
Battelle, won the LLNL contract in 2007.

But not everyone is pleased with the change.

“Salaries are changing, many of the top-level people will
come out with much higher salaries,” York said. “But a majority of the people
don’t like it because of the way it affects pensions, health care, relationships,
perceptions about intellectual freedom. People feel more confident in the
University of California than they do in the Bechtel Corporation, that’s all.
So there’s no doubt that the people at the laboratories want it the way it
was.”

Although LLNS spokesperson Lynda Seaver claims the lab’s
salary structure remains the same, and choices of pension packages are
substantially equivalent to those offered under the UC system, the lab suffered
from a series of layoffs starting in December, shortly after the changeover
from UC system to LLC. About 500 employees have been let go so far, and,
according to the goals LLNL Director George Miller set at an all-hands meeting
with employees, he would like another 10 percent to leave the lab. The
changeover has reportedly resulted in $130 million in increased costs.

“Until mid-December [2007], the Laboratory, like all other
national laboratories, faced some uncertainty due to the lack of an approved
budget,” said Seaver. “We also are undergoing some workforce restructuring,
which will include a voluntary buyout.”

The layoffs, combined with the change in management, may
have also affected LLNL’s ability to attract and keep new researchers.
According to Hugh Gusterson, a nuclear weapons analyst quoted in Betsy Mason’s
Dec. 9 article in the Contra Costa Times, “Almost everyone I ever interviewed
at Livermore or Los Alamos National Laboratory told me that it was very
important to them to say they work for the University of California, not just a
bomb factory. There’s prestige in it.”

York agreed, saying that many scientists see the UC system
as a superior employer.

“That changes day to day and year to year, but by and large,
the University of California is regarded, by new young scientists coming out of
school, as a great place to work for,” York said.

Anonymous LLNL employees have been posting their criticisms
of the new changes on the blog, “LLNL: The True Story” since early December,
and, according to Mason’s article, the number of scientists and engineers
leaving LLNL has increased continuously, from 141 in 2002 to 278 in 2007.

Questions also linger as to why the regents voted to remain
part of the labs’ managerial companies at all, given their poor track record in
2003 and a distinct lack of sizable benefits.

“The main benefit we’ve gotten for all these many years is a
very small fee, which we’ve then used for other purposes relating to
international security,” York said. “However, it’s a rather small benefit. I
mean, the laboratories have several billion dollars and that’s a few tens of
million. So we’re talking about 1 percent or something like that.”

York also believes that the UC system primarily chose to
continue its relationship with the weapons labs based on the long-standing
history between them.

“The natural thing is to continue the path unless there’s a
good reason not to. It’s the way people are, people behave. It’s just inertia
and familiarity, and I would say also, that’s what the staff would like.”

In their decision to maintain relations with the labs, the
regents have also ignored demands from activist groups such as the Coalition to
Demilitarize the UC, which seeks to end the university-lab relationship on the
grounds that an institution of higher education should not be associated with
the development of nuclear weapons.

“There’s something to that,” York said. “It is something
outside the normal purposes of a higher education institution, and it does
divert attention from other things. [If] I were king, or something like that, I
would cut it off … that’s been my position at least for the last 10 years,
since the end of the Cold War. But once you leave the university, nobody cares
— it doesn’t make any difference at all.”

Ultimately, York maintained, the UC system’s reduced
involvement in lab management will not have any great effect.

“I think it’s a step in the wrong direction, done for the
wrong reasons, but it doesn’t make much difference,” he said. “The new
management is competent, and the people who are already there will make the
transition and it’ll be basically smooth. It may have some glitches … but this
will all pass.”