Supreme Court may decide if states fire employees who leave for military duty

[TexasTowelie]

Last edited Thu Dec 3, 2020, 05:59 AM - Edit history (1)

By Tara Copp, McClatchy Washington Bureau


WASHINGTON — Should a federal law that protects National Guard members and reservists from being fired from their private sector jobs while they are deployed also apply to state government jobs? Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court hinted it might weigh in on the issue.

The U.S. Supreme Court last Tuesday requested additional information from the Texas attorney general’s office on why the state should not be held accountable to the 1994 Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA), which prohibits employers from retaliating against or firing National Guard members and reservists who are pulled from their full-time jobs to go on active duty.

The case that sparked the court’s interest, Le Roy Torres v. The Texas Department of Public Safety, involves a former Texas state trooper who came back from a yearlong deployment to Balad, Iraq, too sick to perform his former patrol duties. Torres spent a year breathing in toxic ash from the massive open air pit at Balad that may have also sickened thousands of other Iraq war veterans.

In an email to McClatchy, Torres said the state did not provide an alternative desk job that could accommodate his deteriorating health. Instead, he said, he was forced to resign in 2012. Torres now relies on supplemental oxygen and is largely confined to his home in Robstown, Texas.

Read more: https://www.brownsvilleherald.com/2020/12/02/supreme-court-may-decide-states-fire-employees-leave-military-duty/

[TeamPooka]

1. Way to support the troops Texas

[DeminPennswoods]

2. A bit of an odd situation here because this trooper

came back with a disability, but still since the employer knows the employee is in the national guard or otherwise subject to military activation when the employee is hired, then that employee should have his or her job back when their duty ends.

[jimfields33]

3. Yep. I can't understand why they couldn't give him a desk job.

From my understanding, they do this often for other reasons.

[4Q2u2]

4. Home of the Cotton Pickers

Robstown Highschool Mascot.
Very enlightened folks.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/09/06/texas-high-school-faces-criticism-after-its-cotton-pickers-team-name-gains-attention/

[TexasTowelie]

5. There are cotton fields around Robstown.

What was more offensive was when Frisco High School had the "Coons" as their mascot. They did change the mascot to "Raccoons" around 2002.

https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/05/05/15-years-later-the-frisco-coons-mascot-debate-continues-on-facebook/

ETA: When I was in high school we used to have marching contest in Robstown. I don't know why they had it there because the football field barely had any grass and it was full of pock marks from the football players cleats.

[4Q2u2]

6. When i was there

The Football field was still bad in 2006.
I was TAD to NAS Kingsvlle.