May 6, 2009

University of California President Mark G. Yudof

Office of the President

University of California

1111 Franklin St., 12th Floor

Oakland, CA 94607

Dear President Yudof, 

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. 327 of those retirees are not Medicare eligible, due in part to past UC policies. UCLRG was formed to ensure consistent treatment of retiree medical benefits for all UC retirees who worked at LLNL. We signatories are members of UCLRG and are requesting your help.

Since you became President after the change of management at LLNL occurred, you might not be familiar with our situation. UC offered retirees from LLNL continued medical benefits when we retired so long as they were provided to other UC retirees. We received those benefits from UC until DOE selected the current management, Lawrence Livermore National Security LLC (LLNS), to replace UC as management contractor at LLNL.

NNSA asserts that they are free to control the benefits we receive. UC employed us for work at LLNL so we are UC retirees, and we receive our pensions from UC. We should be getting our medical benefits from UC as well. Instead NNSA has put LLNS in charge of our benefits and they have informed us of an aggressive plan to significantly curtail benefits and increase our share of the costs over the next three years. These changes are unique to UC retirees from LLNL. Retirees at LANL and LBNL are continuing to receive UC or UC-equivalent benefits.

Prior to our retiring, UC benefits representatives assured us, during retirement seminars and in individual benefits counseling, that retirees would continue to receive UC medical benefits if we chose the monthly annuity. A primary driver for most retirees to take the annuity rather than the “lump sum” option is that continuation of UC medical benefits after retirement was only available if the annuity was selected. 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 at all UC 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.

LLNS did not exist until long after most of us retired. Before the change in management no UC retiree from LLNL had any relationship with LLNS. NNSA placed a requirement in Contract No. DE-AC52-07NA27344 that LLNS provide medical benefits to us. We can’t conceive of any legal basis for allowing LLNS to control our medical benefits.  A contract between NNSA and LLNS has no legal effect on UC or its retirees, since neither is party to the contract. The contract between NNSA and LLNS does not void the commitment UC made to provide medical benefits to UC retirees from LLNL.

We solicit your aid in transferring responsibility for our medical benefits back to UC where they rightly and legally belong and insuring that DOE reimburses UC for their share of the costs.

Joe Requa, UCLRG Founder, is acting as spokesman on behalf of the UCLRG 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 we perceive, links to relevant documents, status reports on our activities and related newspaper articles. He can be contacted by mail, email or telephone (as shown below) if more information is needed.

Joe Requa

UCLRG Founder

563 Brookfield Dr.

Livermore, CA 94550

jrequa@comcast.net

(925) 443-0120