Hanford Workers Keep Pay, Benefits

Most workers at the Hanford nuclear reservation will earn the same salary and benefits when a new company takes over management of the site on Oct. 1.

Fluor Daniel and its subsidiaries will take over some 2,500 workers who used to work for Westinghouse, Kaiser and Boeing at the former nuclear weapons production site.

Hanford jobs, funded by the federal government, typically are among the best paying in Eastern Washington.

The new company will for a time provide the same pension, vacation and medical benefits as those workers had under their previous employer, Fluor President Hank Hatch said Thursday.

Hatch said Fluor Daniel may change the benefits package in the future, but those changes will be phased in over time. He declined to say what changes might be made.

With the exception of 209 senior managers, the Fluor group will offer jobs to all incumbent workers, Hatch said.

One of the persistent complaints of Hanford critics in the past has been that many rank-and-file workers and low-level managers remain in their jobs and resist efforts by the federal government to promote more openness on the secretive site.

The existing senior managers will be interviewed and some will likely be offered jobs, Hatch said.

The DOE told Fluor Daniel there will be no additional layoffs at Hanford this year. About 5,000 jobs have been cut in the past 18 months.

Hatch would not speculate on what would happen to jobs in 1997.

Fluor has promised to help create 3,000 new non-Hanford jobs in the Tri-Cities, a key provision in its winning bid.