Political Petition
The University of California Livermore Retiree Group (UCLRG) represents over three hundred of the 5400 former University of California (UC) employees who retired from UC after working at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) during the time when UC was managing LLNL. Medicare does not cover 327 of those retirees, due in part to past UC policies. UCLRG was formed to ensure consistent treatment of retiree medical benefits for all UC retirees. We signatories are members of UCLRG and are requesting your help.
We believe that the Department of Energy (DOE) has
illegally transferred responsibility for our medical benefits from UC to LLNS.
UC gave us assurances that we, as retirees, would continue to receive UC
medical benefits upon retiring.
LLNS did not exist until long after most of us retired. Before the
management change none of us had any relationship with LLNS. NNSA placed a requirement in Contract No. DE-AC52-07NA27344 that LLNS provide us
with UC-comparable medical benefits. We cannot conceive of any legal basis for
allowing LLNS to control our medical benefits. A contract between NNSA
and LLNS should have no legal effect on UC or its retirees, since neither of us
is a party to the contract. The contract between NNSA and LLNS should not void
the commitment UC made with regard to our medical benefits.
When we retired UC assured us that
we would continue to receive UC medical benefits. Prior to the change in LLNL
management our benefits were set and managed by UC, and we were treated the
same as all other UC retirees from other campuses. The DOE-UC management
contract (Contract 48) termination section says UCRP shall retain the
liabilities associated with pensioners. It also requires DOE to pay any
unfunded UC liabilities that arise from termination. Our medical benefits are
an unfunded liability resulting from contract termination. DOE is in breach of
Contract 48, providing modified benefits through LLNS. DOE is reimbursing LLNS
rather than UC as Contract 48 required, and is paying a liability different
than UC has to us. UC has abandoned us rather than protecting us from the
successor contractor, as intended in the terms of Contract 48.
DOE Directive N 351.1 directs DOE Contractors to
minimize as many retiree benefit costs as legally possible. It was
approved April 27, 2006, to be applied by March 1, 2007 at the latest. It
exempted selective elements of DOE without providing justification. Its application was deferred one year
for LLNL. That allowed the contract between LLNS
and NNSA to specify employment terms for transferring UC employees and medical
coverage for UC retirees Ð conditions that would not have been allowed
without the suspension. Some of us believe the delay was to allow NNSA to use
bait and switch tactics, aka Total Compensation Package 1 (TCP1), to convince
UC employees and retirees that the transition would be business as usual. UC
employees learned that was not true when layoffs began shortly after the
transition, even though the contract required that every UC employee in good
standing be offered a job. Retirees were not affected until open enrollment for
medical insurance last fall limited our options and increased our costs.
NNSA inserted Modification 42 into the LLNS contract
effective August 25, 2008, long after contract execution. Among other changes,
it modified Section H subsection (i) by adding clause (2) which begins ÒThe
Contractor may change retiree medical benefits after contract executionÓ. That
effectively nullified clause (1), which mandated UC-equivalent medical
benefits. It also discredited the claim that DOE transferred UCÕs obligation to
provide retiree medical benefits to LLNS.
Subsequently LLNS changed our medical insurance pool,
from the UC pool to a pool of UC retirees and LLNS TCP1 employees, resulting in
a medical cost increase of 30% for LLNS in 2009. That was the first step in an
LLNS three-year plan, presented openly at LLNS medical benefits open enrollment
meetings, to eviscerate our medical benefits while significantly increasing our
costs. We believe that
modification 42 is an attempt to implement 351.1 and is
driving the changes to the medical benefits provided by LLNS. We do not believe
that directive is applicable to us because it was not included in the terms of the
UC-DOE management contract (Contract 48). We also do not believe NNSA should be
allowed to change LLNSÕ responsibility to provide our medical benefits
retroactively after contract execution.
A third of our retirees subscribe to Kaiser Permanente. LLNSÕ contractor for medical coverage, Extend Health, has not been able to negotiate a contract with Kaiser. LLNS let their medical insurance contractor for the previous year, Hewitt, continue to provide Kaiser coverage for 2009. They did not allow any retirees to switch to Kaiser contrary to the rules of open enrollment. We will receive Kaiser coverage only until January 1, 2010. If Extend Health and Kaiser do not come to terms, all Kaiser members will have to change providers. A shift of that magnitude will disrupt medical services in the entire Livermore area, disrupt ongoing treatment for retirees, and lead to mass confusion.
The only solution that makes sense would be for UC to retain responsibility for providing equivalent benefits to UC retirees from LLNL, as they do to other UC retirees. That is what we were promised and what Contract 48 specifies. We are aware that UC is considering changes to their medical benefits program, a right that they have always reserved. We are confident that UC will treat us fairly. DOE must stand behind its commitment to pay all unfunded liabilities resulting from termination of the Contract 48 and pay the same costs for us as UC pays for its other retirees regardless of 351.1, which did not go into effect until after we retired and LLNL management changed.
We are working to convince UC that Contract 48 does not allow UC to cede control of our medical benefits to LLNS. We believe a co-operative effort on the issue by UC and DOE will be needed to correct the problem.
We are therefore requesting that you help us convince DOE to transfer responsibility for our retiree medical benefits insurance back to UC where it belongs and assure that DOE continues to pay UCÕs portion of the costs. This solution would cure the breaches of Contract 48, as required by law.
Joe Requa, UC Retiree, is acting as spokesman on our behalf and is our point of contact. He has set up a web site at http://home.comcast.net/~jrequa/retiree.htm that gives a more detailed description of the problem, links to relevant documents, status reports on UCLRG activities and related newspaper articles. He can be contacted by mail, email or telephone if more information is needed, as shown below:
Joe Requa
UCLRG Founder
563 Brookfield Dr.
Livermore, CA 94550
(925) 443-0120