Panel seeks to educate employers about rights of workers in Reserves

Dick Benoit

Thursday, July 18, 2002 | 8:41 a.m.

With the nearly 400 Nevada National Guard members, as well as many individual Nevada reservists, having been activated for the war on terrorism, some employers may be wondering how long they should anticipate dealing with absent workers now wearing uniforms.

About 14,000 Air Force reservists have been called to duty nationwide and, locally, Nellis Air Force Base, along with military installations worldwide, is depending on Guard and Reserve augmentation for heightened security requirements.

In a recent letter to the troops, Gen. John Jumper, Air Force chief of staff, said service officials are trying to answer the question of demobilization.

"Our mobilized guardsmen and reservists want to know when to expect demobilization. At the same time, we are evaluating where and how to shift from a crisis response mode with heavy reliance on mobilized Guard and Reserve to our 'new steady state,' which would utilize volunteer guardsmen and reservists to help meet our mission taskings," Jumper said.

For employers, however, whether absent employees are volunteers or not makes little difference. They are still absent and, while a wave of patriotism has swept the country since the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center, it has not been enough to completely stem a rising tide of employer/reservist disputes when reservists are called to duty.

According to Dan Porter, Southern Nevada ombudsman for the Nevada Committee for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, 10 complaints have been documented by the committee since October. That is down from 25 complaints handled by the committee in 2001 and 14 in 2000, but more than the seven complaints handled in 1999. And more than two months are left in the federal fiscal year that ends Oct. 1.

Porter would not characterize the complaints as predominantly employer or reservist initiated. But according to Nevada committee executive director Manny Escobedo, many complaints result from a lack of information for employers, and the group is working to address the problem.

When representatives of the 54 committees making up the National Committee for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve met in San Diego in May, they formulated plans to reach out to civilian employers of reservists to inform them of their rights and responsibilities under USERRA, the Uniformed Services Employment and Re-employment Rights Act.

The act requires employers to hold activated reservists' jobs open for them and give them certain longevity or career progression-related raises and promotions for up to five years while they are performing military duty. The act also prohibits discriminatory hiring and employment policies based on reserve affiliation.

The San Diego initiative, says Escobedo, is called "Mission Too." It calls for all state committees to proactively reach out to employers of reservists through the media, a speakers bureau and individual visits by committee members to the workplace.

"We are looking for business groups and individual businesses that want to learn more about their rights and responsibilities as employers of reservists," he said.

Escobedo can be reached at 228-8398.

In brief