ABQjournal: Nanos Creating a Climate of Fear

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Nanos Creating a Climate of Fear

By Betty Gunther
Guest Commentary
    RE: LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY director G. Pete Nanos' open letter to Northern New Mexico:
    Citizens of Northern New Mexico need to know that LANL employees are very concerned about the recent events at the Laboratory. We are worried that the University of California will lose the contract to operate LANL and that funding for LANL programs will dry up due to the actions of our director. Employees also worry that they will lose their jobs due to the draconian new measures the director has put in place.
    Nanos' assertion that there are "fundamental cultural problems" at LANL is not only vague but insulting to the vast majority of LANL employees who have worked hard and successfully to improve both safety and security at LANL. Insulting and punishing the entire workforce at LANL for the misdeeds of a few is guaranteed to backfire. So are the sinister new techniques Nanos has implemented to create a climate of fear and mistrust among LANL employees.
    Recently, LANL employees were appalled when a student suffered a retinal injury while working with a scientist on a laser. Certainly, serious steps must be taken to remedy whatever conditions permitted such an accident. On the other hand, a look at the Department of Energy statistics, available on its safety web page, will show that LANL has one of the lowest numbers of accidents per hours worked of any DOE laboratory— significantly lower than the accident rates of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
    Comparing all of the DOE accident rates to those of industry shows that all DOE laboratories have far lower accident rates than the chemical industry and the manufacturing industry. In addition, with its so-called "culture of arrogance and denial," LANL's accident rate has continually improved since 1997. Yet Nanos is portraying LANL as an example of poor safety practices. Certainly there is room for improvement, but Nanos' constant tongue-lashings will not serve to improve the safety conditions, but will worsen employee cooperation. Psychology tells us that the carrot works far better than the stick.
    As for LANL's recent loss of two zip drives, the lab had a similar incident in 2000, which created much adverse publicity throughout the world. Two hard drives were removed from a vault and later found behind a copy machine. Alert managers would have recognized at that point that there should be some improved means of protecting classified electronic information. Stores and libraries commonly have systems for tagging their inventory so it will set off alarms if it is removed without authorization. Certainly LANL's secret information deserves as much protection as clothing, CDs and videos in a retail store. LANL could have installed such systems or better ones years ago, yet has failed to do so.
    The failure to implement "cowboy"-proof controls for its secret information cannot be blamed on employees. Only management can allocate resources for such measures. So who was in denial? Could it have been Nanos himself?
    Since the latest security incident, managers are being asked to rate employees on their attitudes. No objective measure of attitude has been provided, so the rating is strictly subjective. And employees are being provided anonymity for turning in the names of co-workers whom they believe to be "not trustworthy." Employees deemed untrustworthy will not be permitted to work in classified or risky safety areas, which would lead to eventual dismissal because most work at LANL involves either safety or security. Joe McCarthy would be proud.
    There are better ways to get information from employees. If Nanos would demote managers who retaliate against employees who dare to report safety and security problems, he would be far more likely to find out who the "cowboys" are.
    Nanos' self-defeating behavior has a negative impact on LANL employees and endangers the chances of maintaining the contract with UC. An old LANL joke describes the situation best: "The lashings will continue until morale improves." Most of us aren't holding our breath.
    Betty Gunther
    Los Alamos