Job outlook brighter for Guardsmen and reservists

Employers are getting the message and now the rules: Give returning National Guardsmen and reservists back their jobs.
by James W. Crawley

WASHINGTON — For the first time since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, veterans’ complaints about employers refusing to rehire them or denying benefits and promotions have dropped, according to Labor Department statistics.

Veterans filed 1,320 complaints with the Labor Department during the past year, down 10 percent from the previous year and bucking an upward trend since 2001.

Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao yesterday unveiled regulations to enforce the law that guarantees Guardsmen and reservists their former jobs and benefits after they return home.

The new rules come more than 11 years after Congress enacted that law. In an attempt to make the new rules understandable, officials wrote them as a series of questions and answers.

To learn more about the rules, go the U.S. Department of Labor’s Web site at www.dol.gov/vets.

From 2002-2005, Virginia Guardsmen and military reservists filed 145 such complaint cases with the Labor Department…

In the last year, Stephen Villalpando, chairman of the central Virginia Committee for Employer Support for the Guard and Reserve, has handled 12 to 15 complaints by military reserve-component members against employers.

“I’m happy to say . . . nothing has required litigation,” said Villalpando of Glen Allen. “We’re able to resolve all of them through informal mediation”

The cases typically involved employee eligibility for civilian job bonuses, he said.

Thousands of Virginia National Guardsman have been mobilized for active duty since Sept. 11, 2001, with many serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, but re-employment issues have not been a significant problem, state officials said.

“There have just been a few minor cases,” said Francis Bell, of Harrisonburg, the vice chairman of the Virginia Committee for Employer Support for the Guard and Reserve.

Workplace disputes are usually “due to a lack of knowledge on the part of the employer,” Bell said.

Using volunteers, Employer Support for the Guard and Reserve is the lead Department of Defense organization in helping to resolve conflicts springing from the military commitments of civilian workers.

The law enacted 11 years ago was designed to end employment discrimination against Guardsmen and reservists. It says employers not only must take back employees when they return from active duty, but also must give them any promotions, pay raises and benefits they may have missed while they were gone.

SinceSept.11, more than a half million of these reservists have been mobilized — the largest number since World War II and more than 390,000 have returned to the civilian work force.

Some of those faced problems with employers as they tried to take back former jobs.

By 2004, new complaints investigated by labor officials had risen to 1,465, about 60 percent above pre-Sept. 11 totals. But in the year ending Sept. 30, the department’s new cases dropped to 1,320.

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