Officials seek source of flier that has nuke workers are worried

Benjamin Grove

Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2002 | 11:07 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Officials for the National Nuclear Security Administration are trying to calm the jangled nerves of workers in the agency's Nevada offices after an anonymous flier said their jobs were in danger.

The one-page flier warned that the NNSA planned massive job cuts for the agency's 239 Nevada workers.

"Six out of 10 people currently working in Nevada will not be here at the end of the fiscal year 2004," said the flier, which most believe was written by an insider. "Meanwhile Headquarters has kept on hiring ... Albuquerque sits fat and happy ... and Oakland (an administrative office in California with no mission work) comes out smelling like a Potomac Cherry Blossom."

The flier generated anxiety among workers as it circulated Tuesday in the NNSA's Nevada Operations offices, spokesman Darwin Morgan said.

"There are employees who are concerned about their future," Morgan said. Morgan did not know the source of the flier.

But an NNSA spokesman in Washington said that any talk of job cuts was "pure speculation."

The NNSA since February has been planning a massive reorganization of the agency, but details are not set for release until next week, spokesman Bryan Wilkes said. Final decisions had not been made, Wilkes said.

"Nobody knows what's going to happen," he said.

Part of the reorganization includes removing a layer of management, agency officials told Congress earlier this year.

The NNSA is a division of the Energy Department and is primarily responsible for the safety and reliability of the nation's aging nuclear weapons stockpile. The Nevada operations office manages the Nevada Test Site, formerly a proving ground for the nation's nuclear weapons. The Test Site's mission now includes low-level radioactive waste storage, counter-terrorism training, subcritical nuclear weapons tests and research.

The NNSA has two other major operations offices, in Albuquerque and Oakland, and nine regional offices nationwide.

The NNSA's acting administrator Linton Brooks said he intends to trim the agency's workforce by 20 percent. But Brooks wants to accomplish that through attrition and early retirement incentives -- not by firing workers, Wilkes said.

"He said he intends to go out of his way to treat people fairly," Wilkes said.

The flier encouraged workers to seek help from Nevada lawmakers. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said he already spoke with Brooks last week to request that there be no job cuts in Nevada. NNSA's most valuable jobs are in Nevada, Ensign said.

"I told him that I support what you are trying to do with the restructuring, but we made made the pitch, 'Why should it be in Nevada?' " Ensign said.

Brooks did not say whether he planned to cut jobs in Nevada, Ensign said.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., is trying to verify the flier's validity, she said.

"Obviously, receiving a flier like this right before the holidays is very demoralizing," Berkley said. "We're going to do everything we can to see that no one loses their job."