While nobody had walked off the job at deadline for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, some 240 people were set to go on strike at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California over what the union called the management’s refusal to negotiate terms of a mandatory on-call policy for some craft workers.
The Society of Professionals, Scientists and Engineers Local 11 – University Professional and Technical Employees, Communications Workers of America Local 9119, AFL-CIO approved the strike by the University Profession and Technical Employees (UPTE) on Saturday, a union representative said Monday in a phone interview. The UPTE local in Livermore voted for a strike on July 1, the representative said.
The union’s contract with Lawrence Livermore National Security (LLNS), a team led by Bechtel National and the University of California, expired in 2019, and there has been “very little progress” negotiating a follow-on agreement, the union representative told Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor this week.
“The Laboratory continues to negotiate in good faith, as we have since the process began in September 2019,” a LLNS spokesperson wrote this week in an email. “We believe that we have offered competitive rates and benefits, in addition to maintaining full employment and compensation during the pandemic. However, we remain separated by several economic issues and management rights. Laboratory planning has ensured that a strike will have minimal impact on any site operations. We will continue to bargain in good faith with the union to reach an agreement”
The union representative said the striking workers will return to the job if the company agrees to negotiate the terms of a mandatory on-call policy it wants to implement for “a couple of the shops” at Livermore where UPTE employees work. The company proposed the mandatory on-call policy without negotiating the particulars with the union first, a violation of the organization’s bargaining rights, the union rep said.
“This is an unfair labor practice strike,” said the rep.
Both labor and management said Thursday that the strike had not yet started and the grievances between the parties had not yet been resolved.
The union represents, all of the lab’s “air conditioning mechanics, locksmiths, boiler and pressure systems mechanics, carpenters, electricians, heavy equipment mechanics, laborers, maintenance mechanics, painters, plumbers/fitters, riggers, sheetmetal workers, trades helpers and welders,” according to its collective bargaining agreement with LLNS.
UTEP has members at all 10 University of California campuses, the system’s medical schools, and the three Department of Energy national laboratories managed in part by the system: Livermore, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California.
