The Leidos-led landlord contractor at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state said Dec. 26 it believes contract talks with the Hanford Guards Union have reached an impasse and Local 21 should either accept the company’s final offer, or present a “reasonable counter offer” by Jan. 2.
The Hanford Guards Union Local 21 has accused Leidos-led Hanford Mission Integration Solutions (HMIS) of trying to deliberately engineer an impasse and has asked a federal district court in Eastern Washington to order an end to the lockout that began Nov. 27.
Negotiations continued on Monday, when the union was set to deliver a proposal, and were to resume at 9:00 p.m. Pacific Time on Tuesday, New Year’s Eve, an HMIS spokesperson said in an email.
HMIS said Thursday, the day after Christmas, that the lockout will end after the union agrees to the contractor’s final offer, already voted down by the unionized guards, or comes up with a counter offer palatable to the company.
“If neither of these occur by Jan. 2, 2025, or if the counteroffer is not something we can accept, HMIS will notify the union and our employees that our best and final offer will be implemented and they will be expected to return to work,” HMIS said in a statement.
While the Hanford Guards Union has told a U.S. District Court the lockout initiated by HMIS has imperiled the security clearance of the union guards, the contractor said Thursday this is not the case.
“Pausing the processing of security clearance actions is a standard practice for personnel not in active working status, regardless of the cause,” HMIS said in a statement emailed Thursday to Exchange Monitor. “When the employee returns to an active-duty status, their clearance process is resumed.” Nobody has been terminated for security clearance issues during the labor dispute, HMIS said.
The Hanford Guards Union has “emailed the company stating we are not at impasse, only HMIS has stated that,” Local 21 President Chris Hall said in an email response to Exchange Monitor. “We continue to send counter proposals with good movement only for HMIS to state they reject it.”
The guards’ union also listed DOE and its site manager at Hanford, Brian Vance, in the current legal action filed before Christmas in federal court. The guards’ union has asked Judge Stanley Bastian to rule by Jan. 2 on its request for a temporary restraining order to prevent workers from losing security clearances as a result of what the union considers an “unlawful lockout.”
The prior labor contract between the parties expired Nov. 1 and was extended a couple of times before the lockout was imposed Nov. 27.
