By JEFFREY SCHIEBERL and CHARLES P. LEO
In mid-March, news outlets reported that by the end of this summer, 32,000 of the 172,000 active duty soldiers stationed in Iraq are likely to return to the United States. This is good news for the active duty soldiers returning home to their families.
Many are coming home to Southern California. Department of Defense data show that the U.S. Army alone recruits more than 3,500 enlistees each year from Southern California. In fact, among the top 100 counties ranked by number of Army recruits, Los Angeles County is No. 3.
Overall, within the next two years, employers face potentially the largest re-employment of reservist “citizen soldiers” in our nation’s history.
But in our opinion, many Los Angeles companies aren’t prepared. Many need to add resources and special considerations to accommodate these returnees’ re-entry into the work force.
Federal protection
Anyone who has been absent from work due to “service in the uniformed services” is protected by the Uniformed Services Employment and Re-Employment Rights Act of 1994, Americans With Disabilities Act and the Veterans Benefits Improvement Act. As a business owner, you must be prepared to address the impact of these laws on your company when military employees return from service in Iraq and Afghanistan.
California has committed more than 3,400 National Guard and Reserve personnel as of January 2007 to the conflicts in the Middle East. More than 390,000 members of the nation’s Guard and Reserves have already been released from service since Sept. 11, 2001. An estimated one in five veterans discharged from active duty between 2002 and 2005 has significant military service-connected disabilities, a number that undoubtedly has increased since then.
When these men and women come home they face considerable struggles in their efforts to resume their lives as they were prior to fulfilling their commitment to serve their country. Their battle is far from over, and it should not be fought in California’s workplaces.
Under most circumstances, the employer must reinstate the employee within two weeks of notification that their service is over. In addition, the re-employed veteran must be provided job protection by the employer for a minimum of 180 days up to a maximum of one year.
Should a veteran return to work with any type of physical disability, employers will be required in a timely manner to modify workplace access and bathroom facilities, provide new desks or make other “reasonable accommodations” to enable the employee to still perform the “core” content of the job for which they are qualified.
Equal treatment
Employers will be required to possibly retrain or modify the employee’s work schedule, and to make appropriate medical treatment possible should a veteran return to work suffering from post-traumatic stress problems or any other form of psychological disability. At every level, the returning veteran employee must be given the same employment benefits and privileges as those given to all other employees.
By and large, employers want to treat returning veterans fairly. However, few clearly know of, much less understand, California and federal requirements. This is particularly the case with small to midsized businesses in which the legal and financial business obligations can prove most challenging. However, many Los Angeles business managers will need to gain knowledge of, conceive and implement a reintegration plan on a greater scale than they likely expect. A sense of right and wrong, not to mention the law, requires it.
Jeffrey Schieberl and Charles P. Leo are professors at Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business and Management and are principals at L & S; Human Resource and Employment Law Consultancy Group.
