Guardsmen job complaints often aimed at government

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Guardsmen job complaints often aimed at government
By Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Friday, November 2, 2007

WASHINGTON — One in every six job discrimination cases last year involving guardsmen and reservists centered on problems with federal agencies, a statistic lawmakers called an embarrassment to the government.

“I sit here almost amazed that we’ve got these federal guidelines and a federal agency can be unaware of them,” Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., said during a hearing before the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee on Wednesday. “If anybody ought to be getting this right, it’s the federal government.

“If I were in the private sector and I saw this, I’d ask, ‘Why are coming after me when you can’t clean up your own house first?’”

Last fiscal year the Department of Labor pursued about 1,400 job complaints on behalf of military personnel under the Uniformed Services Employment and Re-employment Rights Act, according to department statistics. That number has remained steady since fiscal 2001.

Over the last 19 months, about 16 percent of those cases involved federal agencies. Charles Ciccolella, the department’s assistant secretary for veterans employment and training, said that number has stayed in that range for the past few years.

He noted that most of the problems with federal agencies deal with returning employees not getting deserved promotions, job training or seniority preferences — as opposed to many of the illegal firings or demotions investigators see with private companies.


Rest of article at: http://stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=49972