Two former employees of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory alleged mismanagement and wrongful termination in a lawsuit filed Tuesday.
Les Miklosy, a computer scientist who was fired by the lab last February, claimed his objections to the safety and efficiency of the lab’s National Ignition Facility led to harassment and his eventual termination.
He claimed his partner, Lucianna Messina, was later forced to resign.
“The main problem was that the managers wanted to meet milestones, and didn’t want people to be raising issues and slow down the project” said Jan Neilsen, one of the attorneys representing Miklosy and Messina. “Miklosy and Messina raised some of these issues that needed to be addressed. The management did not like that.”
Neilson said when Miklosy was fired, lab officials went into his office, threw books off his shelves and told him to leave.
Lab officials said, however, Miklosy was terminated for performance reasons. The problems he raised about the project had also been documented before, they added.
“They found everything he is raising is not valid,” said lab spokesperson Lynda Seaver. “This project is adhering to the appropriate standards, it’s earned high marks.”
Miklosy and Messina’s objections were also reviewed four times. The lab conducted two reviews while the U.S. Department of Energy conducted a separate inquiry, Seaver said.
“The Department of Energy usually buttresses what the lab contends because the Department of Energy funds the lab, so the Department of Energy does not want to pay,” Neilsen said. “If you raise some issue about mismanagement and then your manager retaliates by firing you, then you are protected under the California whistleblower statue.”
The allegations come just two months after federal legislation was passed requiring the Livermore lab contract to be competed. By 2005, other universities and companies will have a shot to win management of the lab, although UC has held sole stewardship of it since 1952 for the Department of Energy.
Livermore lab is not the only UC-run lab to suffer accusations of mismanagement. Two whistleblowers who alleged financial fraud at Los Alamos National Laboratory in November of 2002 sparked Congressional investigations that eventually led the department to put the contract out to bid last May.
source: http://www.dailycal.org/particle.asp?id=14150 24feb04
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