Home > Some troops returning to lost jobs, benefits
BY LARRY MARGASAK
WASHINGTON — Increasing numbers of National Guard and Reserve troops who have returned from war in Iraq and Afghanistan are encountering new battles with their civilian employers at home. Jobs were eliminated, benefits reduced and promotions forgotten.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Labor Department reports receiving greater numbers of complaints under a 1994 law designed to give Guard and Reserve troops their old jobs back, or provide them with equivalent positions. Benefits and raises must be protected, as if the serviceman or servicewoman had never left.
But some soldiers are finding the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act can’t protect them.
*Larry Gill couldn’t return as a police officer in Thomasville, Ala., because a grenade injured a foot, making it impossible for him to chase criminals or duck bullets.
*Jerry Chambers, of Oberlin, Kan., discovered budget cuts had eliminated his job as a substance abuse prevention consultant.
*Ron Vander Wal, of Pollock, S.D., was originally told his job as a customer service representative was eliminated. He was hired after filing a civil lawsuit.
The Labor Department said complaint numbers would have been worse had the government not made an aggressive effort to explain the law to employers.
’’Any increase in the number of complaints is a concern to us,’’ said Fred Juarbe Jr., assistant secretary of labor for veterans employment and training.
Labor Secretary Elaine Chao said the department is drafting rules to spell out the law’s protections for service personnel.
The department was receiving about 900 formal complaints a year before Sept. 11. The statistical picture since then, based on fiscal years ending Sept. 30:
*1,218 cases opened in 2002.
*1,327 cases in 2003.
*1,200 cases from Oct. 1, 2003 through July 31. If projected over 12 months, the figure would be 1,440, the department said.
The complaints represent a small percentage of the quarter-million Guard and Reserve troops who have left active duty since the Sept. 11 attacks.
Not all returning troops are bitter about their job loss.
Chambers, the substance abuse consultant, agreed budget cuts left his former nonprofit employer no choice but to eliminate his job.
’’I don’t fault them for that, and I don’t hold grudges,’’ he said.
For others, finding their jobs gone was a hardship, emotionally and economically.
Gill had to give up a career that began in 1992 and followed in the footsteps of his father and brother. AP