CORRE Blog

DOE has given UT-Battelle straight A's on it performance as manager of ORNL.  See Frank Munger's article on the DOE evaluation.  As retirees, we are all, of course, appreciative of the job they have done to keep ORNL a top notch lab.  However, on some things, the management of UT-Battelle does not have such stellar performance.  They do not measure up to what Union Carbide did to keep retirees protected to some degree from inflation.

What score would you give them on looking out for retirees?

At its December meeting the CORRE Board approved revisions to the Bylaws. Nomination and election of Board members constitute the significant revisions.

The complete set of Bylaws is now posted on the CORRE website.

The Editor

Larry Long writes: 

 Bechtel Jacobs has notified us that they will be raising the cost of the Pre-Age 65 medical insurance from apx. $406/mo to $812.50/mo beginning in January. They have implied in their announcement that they have to do this to comply with DOE requirements.

 It is true that all of the DOE contractors must comply with these requirements, but there is a great deal of contractor latitude in how they comply. It is not true that they had to raise these piece of the benefits. BJC chose to raise this particular piece. They could have choosen to stay in compliance with the DOE requirements in other ways. The changes that they proposed are changes of convenience. They need to look closely at why the cost are as high as they are. Maybe a root cause analysis would reveal some inefficiencies, You never know when you take the convenient way out and you don't look a little.

 It should be noted at this point that none of the employees hired by BJC after 1998 will receive an Oak Ridge Pension or any Oak Ridge benefits when they leave here. Kinda convenient. Also, both Y-12 and ORNL have been able to comply with these requirements without passing a 100% increase on to their Pre-Age 65 retirees. 

They have supposely conducted a study and compared benefits to a list of DOE approved competitors. I wonder how this list compares to Y-12's or ORNL's list. Give me enough time and the backing to contact other DOE facilities and I believe that I can develop a very creditable list of DOE facilities that will demonstrate the need to lower the cost of our benefits to stay competitive with our competitors. I don't have the list of competitors, but it should be of other DOE sites, not Bechtel peers. After all they don't even get a pension.

The total cost of the Pre-age 65 BJC insurance is $1625.01. Based on some of my research, this cost at Y-12 is less than $1200. Wonder why! Couldn't be administrative cost could it? I don't know why, but perhaps there is some cost savings here that could cover what they are trying to do me. By the way, my total cost is over $10,000 dollars a year and that doesn't preclude them from raising it future years. Try managing that on a fixed income with gas prices and taxes. I should have kept working, but how could I have predicted this.

Now, the Oak Ridge Coalition of Retired Workers (CORRE) has been working to get DOE to bring the pensions more in line with the other DOE facilities across the country. Looks like they may have missed the boat. Our pensions are protected by law. Our medical benefits are not. Looks to me like, they plan to take our pension through our medical. Anyway, at this time, I would be happy to maintain what I had. Unless something changes between now and the first of Jan., I will have apx. $406 less each month to pay my bills. I don't expect that I will ever see a pension increase to compensate me for this, let alone an increase above that.

There are many problems with what is happening, but it appears to me that a basic change in DOE philosohies would help a great deal. DOE is continuing to split contracts and make smaller and smaller units. Folks, the sum of the parts, don't equal the whole. I'm sure that all the DOE requirements for managing a benefit program flow to each of these smaller units and they cannot begin to manage as efficiently with such a small base. They should keep the benefit groupings large to take advantage of cost savings. Put us back with Y-12 and ORNL. Many of us worked for Y-12 and ORNL for part of our careers; we just happen to be with BJC when we retired. Also, DOE should look at competing the management of our benefit package. I would love to have this contract.

Anyway, I worked many long hours for Union Carbide, Lockheed Martin, and Bechtel Jacobs and feel that I made many contributions. I don't nor do the other retirees deserve to be treated this way.

P.S. I have learned that BJC is sending us a new letter this week supposely reducing our contribution. I'll wait to see what it says before commenting further.

A retiree asked:

I wonder if CORRE should offer a “special” for those who attend the annual meeting: a $10 membership. On the spot. Once in a lifetime. More memberships is good.

Charlie Kuryendall said in response:

Most retiree organizations have ANNUAL dues. We chose to keep it simple and have a lifetime membership with a MINIMUM contribution. The $20 is the minimum for active lifetime membership, however several retirees have contributed more than $100 when they signed on as active members.

Faye G asked:

Does CORRE represent retirees at Paducah and Portsmouth, and if not why not?

Charlie Kurykendall responded as follows: 

 We talked about joining forces many times. The deciding factor was that the Paducah and Portsmouth retirees are under a completely different retirement plan than Oak Ridge retirees. We share information and maintain contacts but have never combined forces. We are not certain about how it happened but they were separated from the Oak Ridge plan when they were privatized. DOE implies it was the choice of the unions and some concessions on health benefits were given to all those retirees at the time. We think the retirees got a bad deal. 

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I wonder if CORRE should offer a "special" for those who attend the annual meeting: a $10 membership. On the spot. Once in a lifetime. More memberships is good.

This is a interesting question but one that should be considered by the CORRE Board. I will suggest that President Reichle add this to the agenda of the next Board meeting.

The Editor

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Your name and email will not be posted online.  Your personal information will not be transmitted outside of CORRE.  Your email address may be used to send notices from CORRE.  You will, of course, retain the right to tell us that you do not want any email notices from CORRE, and we will honor that request.

We invite members of CORRE and the public to submit posts (or longer articles) for publication on this blog. Posts on a wide variety of subjects are welcome, as long as they stick to the main theme of this site–pensions and benefits. Subject matter welcomed include:

• Experiences with decrease in value of your pension.

• Experiences with correspondence with officials about Oak Ridge pensions.

• Your ideas about how to get the U.S. Department of Energy and contractor to do the right thing by honoring past practice of contractors regarding adjustments.

• You experiences with medical costs.

• Summaries of and references to articles about retirement benefits, the cost of living for retirees, and ideas on how to manage on retirement income.

You can email the editor with a suggestion for a post or article, or you can just submit it to him. There is no certainty that the post or article will be accepted. The editor will have final determination about publication and may edit the material submitted.

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The Coalition of Oak Ridge Retired Employees (CORRE) was formed in 2000 to represent the interests of the approximately 12,000 retirees (and surviving spouses) who have retired from Department of Energy Contractor-managed facilities at Oak Ridge, Tennessee – Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), K-25 Gaseous Diffusion Plant (K-25), the Y-12 Plant (Y-12), Grandfathered employees under the pension plan at Bechtel-Jacobs and its subcontractors, and Wackenhut.

The primary objectives of CORRE as stated in its Bylaws are: (1) to obtain and maintain pension and other benefits that are fair and equitable and competitive compared with other industries in the region and with other major DOE federal and private Contractors in the technical field; and (2) to safeguard the Pension Trust Fund from which these benefits are derived.

The full text of the position of CORRE on benefits may be obtained on the main web site. Here.

Welcome to the CORRE Blog. Join in the discussion here. Participate! Give us your comments on what you would like to see here.  Suggest links and blogs that would be of interest to retirees.  You can write to us anytime.  Email address here.

This blog is an extension of the CORRE website. Its purpose is to The editor of the site is Dave Mason, and the administrator is Pete Lotts. Webmaster is Fred Postma. Writers are Dave Reichle, Joe Setaro, Bob Keil, Charlie Kuykendall, Keith Kibbe, and Dub Shults.

Dave Mason
Editor

Dave Mason retired from U. S. Enrichment Corp. in 2005 after 5 years as Director, Centrifuge Demonstration Project. He retired from LMES in 1999 with over 20 years of service in management positions including Director, Enrichment Technical Operations for Uranium Enrichment; Director, Enrichment Facilities Support; and various management positions in Environmental Management and Enrichment Facilities (EMEF). His service at LMES was interrupted for intervals at Hobart Brothers Corp. and Cabot Corp.

Pete Lotts
Administrator

A.L. (Pete) Lotts worked at ORNL 1959-1989, except for a 4-year period at K-25 as Director of the AVLIS Division. Originally a member of ORNL’s Metals and Ceramics Division, he served as director of several different programs involving nuclear fuel cycle and reactor technology and later as Director of the Research Reactors Division.

Fred Postma
Webmaster

Fred W. Postma, Jr. served as a Development Chemist in Y-12 Development Division beginning in 1957. In 1973 continued to develop analytical methods to assist K-25. For the last 15 years directed the development of the Analytical Laboratory Information System ( AnaLIS) used at each of the five Energy Systems plant labs. Retired in 1997.

Writers and Contributors

David E. Reichle, President of CORRE came to ORNL in 1964 as an AEC Fellow in the Health Physics Division. He was Director of ORNL’s Environmental Sciences Division, and for 10 years before retirement was ORNL Associate Director for Biological and Environmental Sciences.

Robert G. (Bob) Keil, Vice President of CORRE, was at ORNL for 35 years as a machinist. He served in various capacities in Local 480 of IAM, and in ATLC, of which he was President for 14 years before retirement.

Joseph A. Setaro, Vice President of CORRE, retired from ORNL in 1999 after 35 years of company service. At ORNL, he served as a Section Head in the Operations Division and in the Office of Radiation Protection.

Charlie Kuykendall, Past President of CORRE, started his 41 years of company service at K-25, then worked at Y-12, General Staff, and Paducah, before finishing with 15 years as a division director at ORNL.

Keith Kibbe, member of the CORRE Board of Directors, retired in 1994 with 20 years of service, after holding a variety of program management positions at ORNL and the K-25 Site D&D Program. Previous experience included liquid rocket engine development and testing for Project Apollo at the Rocketdyne Division of North American Aviation in Los Angeles, and in gas-cooled reactor design and development with the General Atomic Company in San Diego.

W. D. “Dub” Shults, member of the CORRE Board of Directors, retired from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1994 after 43 years of company service. He held many research and technical management positions, including Co-Program Director of the NSF/EATC program (3 years), Director of the Analytical Chemistry Division (18 years), and Senior Technical Advisor to the Associate Laboratory Director for Physical Sciences (2 years).