Waiting When You Get Home to See If You Still Have a Job

0 Comments | Insight on the News, May 31, 1999

Reservists called up for the NATO force in the Balkans were reassured by Labor Secretary Alexis M. Herman that their jobs will be waiting when they return. "I believe that the department has the responsibility to make every employer covered by this important law understand and voluntarily comply with it," she said in a statement on the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act. The law protects jobs, pension rights and health benefits. It applies to every employer in the country.

Those who are called up have certain obligations in retaining their job rights. If time and national-security concerns permit, they have to provide their employer with advance notice. They have to get back to work within a reasonable time after returning from duty, and they have to have served honorably. The only out for employers is a situation in which business conditions have changed so much that they cannot comply with the law.