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Battle on the Home Front?
About four in 10 returning civilian soldiers filing complaints against their employers are dissatisfied with the DOL's response to their requests for help. And even though the number of actual employee complaints is going down, companies still lack sufficient knowledge of the reemployment rules.
A recent Pentagon study reports a growing discontent among returning Reservists and National Guard members, suggesting to some that further education of both Reservists and employers needs to be a higher priority. The study, which was released at a recent Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee hearing, found that 44 percent of the returning Reservists and National Guard members who filed a complaint under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act were dissatisfied with the government's handling of their cases in 2006, compared with 27 percent in 2004. Roughly one-third said the Department of Labor's response was not prompt. In addition, about one in four (23 percent) said they could not find a job because their previous employers did not promptly rehire them as required by law. USERRA was enacted in 1994 to ensure that members of the uniformed services are entitled to return to their civilian employment upon their return from service. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who chairs the Senate committee, described the Pentagon's findings as a "Walter Reed-like nightmare," referring to the mismanagement that was uncovered at the Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington earlier this year. "This gross abdication of responsibility to our veterans is unacceptable," he said. "These brave men and women have risked their lives to protect us -- yet we are failing to protect them." Some government officials, however, note that things may not be as bad as the Pentagon report suggests. In testimony before the committee, Charles Ciccolella, assistant secretary for the Veterans' Employment and Training Service at the Department of Labor, reported that each year nearly 320,000 military members return to civilian status -- either through retirement, voluntary separation from active duty, demobilization or discharge. Most USERRA problems "emerge from misunderstandings of employers' obligations," said Ciccolella, adding that the majority of cases are resolved quickly. Ciccolella said VETS "vigorously investigates complaints, and when employers do not comply with the law, we make every effort to bring them into compliance." Dave Patel, deputy director of national operations and plans for the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, said he believes the government has become much better at communicating the process to Reservists and employers. (ESGR is a unit of the Department of Defense that provides educational services and mediation assistance to Reservists and employers. ) "We've seen the number of actual cases, as opposed to information requests, go down," he says. "We believe this is due to the effectiveness of ESGR volunteer ombudsmen across the country." In 2007, the ESGR reported 2,374 cases, compared to 3,053 in 2006 and 4,022 in 2005. Patel doesn't dispute that communication between federal agencies needs improvement, but says critics need to remember that these agencies are limited by laws that are designed to protect the privacy of returning Reservists. "If a service member calls us, we're restricted in what we can share," he says. Other findings in the Pentagon report include: * Nearly 15,000 of the returning Reservists and National Guard members didn't receive the training they needed to return to their former jobs; * Nearly 11,000 of them didn't get their health insurance back. * About one-third of them experienced difficulty getting reemployment assistance from government agencies. "The system is being challenged like never before," says Lawrence Z. Lorber, an attorney in the Washington office of Proskauer Rose. "We've never seen the numbers of people coming back to the workplace after a year or 15 months like we're seeing now." Lorber says he's not surprised to see the Pentagon numbers increase, because the longer a Reservist or National Guard member is gone, the longer the gap before they need to be rehired under the law. "It makes sense," he says, "that the DOD would see more complaints ... ." USERRA is "a complicated law" that's hard for many employers and returning Reservists and National Guard members to get their hands around, he adds. While large companies are clearly aware of what their duties are under the law, he says, mid-size employers with employees at multiple locations still require a lot more education.
November 21, 2007 Copyright 2007© LRP Publications |
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