Layoffs Won’t Exceed 500, Fluor Daniel Says Doe Studying Hanford Contractor’s Restructuring; Notice Would Be Cut From 2 Months To 2 Weeks

Fluor Daniel expects to lay off fewer than 500 workers in 1998, but is uncertain when those layoffs would occur.

But the 60 days advance notice that was given to laid-off Hanford workers in the past will be trimmed to two weeks.

Among other major Hanford contractors, Battelle-Northwest is expecting to add a few workers over the year, while Bechtel remains uncertain because its budget is not yet firm.

Fluor sent its work force restructuring plan to the Department of Energy this week.

Such a plan is required if a year’s layoffs are expected to exceed 100.

“We anticipate the plan will be approved in the next few weeks,” wrote Hank Hatch, Fluor Daniel Hanford president, in a memo to Fluor team employees Friday.

“I don’t have a final figure for fiscal year 1998 reductions. The current plan being reviewed states that fewer than 500 (Fluor core team) employees will be subject to an involuntary reduction of force throughout the course of the year,” Hatch wrote.

The “fewer than 500” figure reflects earlier Fluor pronouncements on how many jobs might be cut in 1998.

The restructuring plan addresses employees in Fluor Daniel Hanford and its six main subcontractors, said Gordon Beecher, Fluor’s director of human resources.

Beecher said work changes, layoffs and restructuring within the companies also could affect the site’s six spinoff “enterprise” companies, since most of their work is Hanford-related.

In September, the seven main companies employed 5,547 people and the six enterprise companies employed 2,058.

A new wrinkle with the 1998 layoffs is that workers will get two weeks notice instead of 60 days before layoffs.

For the past three years, Hanford employees received 60 days notice.

Federal law requires the 60-day notices on mass layoffs by government contractors in certain situations - including when layoffs number at least 500 or one-third of the total work force.

The “fewer than 500” expectation in 1998 does not meet those criteria, said Beecher and Dom Sansotta, DOE manager for contractor work force programs.

Through layoffs and attrition, Hanford eliminated about 6,000 jobs since 1994 - in large and small groups.

At Hanford’s other primary contractors:

Battelle-Northwest, which operates the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, expects a “slight” increase in its work force in 1998, said Battelle spokesman Greg Koller.

Battelle employed about 3,300 people in Richland in September.

Bechtel Hanford Inc.’s team still is waiting to see how the site’s environmental restoration budget will shape up before predicting how many of its roughly 970 workers may be laid off in 1998.

The worst-case scenario predicts 220 Bechtel layoffs by Sept. 30, 1998.