Kenneth Fletcher
RW Monitor
3/21/2014
With funding for a program supporting the American Centrifuge project set to run out in the coming weeks, USEC sent out layoff notices to 400 employees late last week, according to spokesman Paul Jacobson. The WARN Act notices for potential layoffs within 60 days went out to 400 USEC employees in Ohio, Tennessee and Maryland out of a total 1,320 employees. An extension of a Department of Energy cost-share program supporting USEC’s American Centrifuge project is set to run out in mid-April. While Congress has offered additional funds for the program, they are contingent on DOE completing an analysis of options for providing low enriched uranium for tritium production.
Jacobson emphasized that the company is working with DOE and Congress to ensure continued funding for American Centrifuge. “We believe that the American Centrifuge technology is the best option to meet those national security requirements for decades to come,” Jacobson said. “However, the absence of clarity regarding both funding and DOE’s intentions for the program beyond April 15 mean USEC must issue notices of potential layoffs within 60 days to warn American Centrifuge workers, as required by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act. Given that we had roughly 30 days of program funding at the end of last week, USEC took the prudent step of issuing WARN notices to the affected employees.”
He added, “I would underscore that these notifications do not mean layoffs will occur or that USEC has decided to scale back or demobilize the program, only that the potential for these actions exist.”
