Troops Shafted AgainAgainAgain

Open Left:: Back from Iraq and Losing your Job: Hiding the Failed Enforcement of USERRA: "An op-ed in yesterday's Washington Post calls out the Pentagon for its role in hiding the illegal firings of reservists and national guardsmen by their civilian employers when they return from Iraq. To give an example of the scale of the problem, between 2004 and 2006, there were 16,000 complaints filed by returning troops who are supposed to be protected under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA):

The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) protects members of the guard and reserves from job loss, demotion, loss of seniority and loss of benefits when they are called to active duty.

The act is supposed to protect reservists' civilian jobs for up to five years of military service. But the government has made it difficult for veterans to enforce their legal rights. Service members who return to find their civilian jobs gone also find that the burden is on them to prove that their jobs were taken away as a result of their military service and that there is no other reason that they could have been fired."