Salary Examples
Of AFSCME Offers

Berkeley Lab management has calculated the monetary impact of its “best and final” labor contract proposals for members of the Association of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) at the lab. The nearly 120 members of the SX service unit include bus and truck drivers, custodians, materials transporters, and technical assistants. AFSCME has authorized a strike for this Thursday. Read the final offer letters here (in April 6 issue of TABL), and a chart with salary increases calculated retroactively to October 1, 2004, for four job titles under the two final offers here. More news on the prospective strike will appear in tomorrow's edition of TABL.

Weekend Power Outage
Scheduled for Old Town

There will be a scheduled power outage for electrical system maintenance at utility buildings 34 and 37 from 6 a.m. Saturday, to noon Sunday. This outage will interrupt low conductivity water (LCW) and treated water (TRW) supply to the Original Lab Site area. The buildings affected are: 2, 5, 6, 10, 16, 25, 27, 43, 46, 52, 53, 58, 58A, and 80. For Building 2 the LCW and TRW will be restored on Monday by 8 a.m. For more information contact the Operations Office at x7941.

Dependent, Health Care Reimbursement Deadline

The deadline for submitting Dependent Care and Health Care Reimbursement Account claims for expenses incurred during the 2004 tax year is Friday. These are "use it or lose it" accounts, so any unclaimed balance will be forfeited. Go here to download a claim form.

Portable High-Resolution NMR Sensor Unveiled

Demas

Homeland security experts may soon be getting a valuable new tool for identifying the chemical constituents in suspicious substances. A portable device makes it possible for the first time ever to take high-resolution NMR spectroscopy out of the laboratory and into the field for use on samples of any size. Collaboration on this research included Berkeley Lab material scientist Alex Pines and the Environmental Energy Technologies Division's Jeffrey Reimer, along with Reimer's graduate student Vasiliki Demas. Full story.

More Media Coverage
Of Malaria Antidote

Keasling

The anti-malarial synthetic biology research of Jay Keasling, a scientist with Berkeley Lab's Physical Biosciences Division, is featured in the March 28 edition of The Scientist. The article discusses the $42.6 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop Keasling's technique for using genetically engineered microbes to inexpensively produce artemisinin, one of the world's most effective malaria drugs, into a commercial product for distribution to the countries of the world where the drug is most needed. Currently, artemisinin is extracted from the sweet wormwood plant at a relatively high cost. Full story (registration required).