Union Doubts Privatization Savings Wants Feds To Check Whether Inel Statements On Savings Were Overstated

The union representing 2,000 workers at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory called for a federal investigation on Monday into its claims that savings from turning some work over to private business are being illegally inflated.

President Robert Wages of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union maintained sworn statements showed savings were overstated and legally required plans not developed to provide economic protection for workers whose jobs were affected by the end of the Cold War.

In an 11-page letter to Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary, Wages contended the statements prove taxpayers money was being wasted because Energy Department officials in Idaho had failed to verify cost-saving claims filed by Lockheed Martin Idaho Technologies Corp., which essentially operates the INEL under government contract.

Lockheed Martin spokesman John Walsh said officials were reviewing the allegations but had no immediate comment.

And because of the Columbus Day holiday, there was no immediate reaction from the Energy Department.

The statements were made in a deposition taken from Rafael Soto, who heads community economic development for Lockheed Martin, as part of the union’s lawsuit against the government for allegedly failing to protect Cold War-era workers.

The union claims Lockheed is inflating cost savings from privatization because it gets 20 percent of the money saved.

Lockheed says it is saving the government $500,000 over five years by turning its personal computer training responsibility over to local business. Soto outlined those savings before Energy Department officials in Denver and said the Lockheed workers who moved to the private company in the privatization move were being paid the same and receiving comparable benefits.

But in the deposition, Soto acknowledged that the savings projection did not include at least $160,000 for severance pay and pension costs or the expense of his office to put the privatization move together.

He indicated, however, that those costs were not intended to be used in comparing whether a private company could do the work more cheaply than the government because there are costs associated with any change and using them in the calculation could always justify making no change.

But Soto did concede that he could not verify that workers transferring to the private business were getting the same pay and comparable benefits, and he expressed his opposition to any plan such as the one the union says Congress contemplated to protect Cold War-era workers to maintain wages as their jobs are affected by the changing mission of former defense industry facilities.

Soto said he considered such a requirement “an infringement upon private sector companies on the part of the government by requiring them to pay any amount to employees of that company. I believe in the free enterprise system.”