Employers’ Legal Obligations to Employees in the Military

Workforce Management online
October 2007

Hiring citizen soldiers has great benefits, but there are also strict laws governing their treatment that every employer needs to know. By Jeffrey Schieberl and Charles P. Leo

Citizen soldiers bring many assets to the workplace: They tend to follow instructions and respect authority; they have leadership skills and work well in organizations. Some have service-acquired skills that translate well in the business community such as computer skills. With these many talents provided to the employer come responsibilities.
This article is intended to bring to the attention of employers the legal obligations they have to employees who have been called to active military duty or who are members of the United States National Guard or Reserves. For example, what obligations, if any, does an employer have to re-employ a veteran in the position they held before being called to active duty? What if doing so displaces another employee or results in hardship for the employer?
While there are benefits in having a citizen soldier as an employee, employers must be prepared to address these difficult questions along with several others that flow from the Uniformed Services Employment and Re-Employment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA).1 Unlike some other federal laws that apply only if the employer has a certain number of employees, USERRA applies to all employers.
If you are wondering if these challenges will present themselves to your business organization, consider what the Pentagon has reported: As of August 2005, more than 141,000 members of the United States National Guard and Reserve military forces have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Currently, those forces comprise more than 35 percent of all U.S. military forces actively serving in the region.

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