Companies may be illegally discriminating against military reservists, despite legislation on the books designed to prevent such practices, a new study shows.
Since reservists play a crucial role in preserving national security, Congress passed the Uniform Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) of 1994, which effectively makes it illegal for employers to discriminate against reservists because of the time off they may need to fulfill their duties. In the past, those duties were mostly limited to one weekend a month of training and two months during the summer. But following 9/11, many of these reservists have been called up for deployments, which means they may be away from their jobs for long periods of time.
Theodore F. Figinski, an economist with the Department of the Treasury, recently conducted a study on a total sample of 8,000 fictitious resumes sent to companies from August 2012 to August 2013, finding reservists were 11 percent less likely to get a call for an interview. These resumes sent out to employers were identical, except for the fact that one version of the resume listed the applicant as a current reservist, while the other listed the applicant as a completed reservist.
Figinski noted that the 11 percent effect discovered is likely larger for jobs that require even more training, as the resumes in his study were used to apply for common, ground-floor level jobs common to other reservists, such as sales, customer service and general office roles.
While USERRA is effective at times, companies have managed to find ways around it. In 2013, Kevin Ziober was informed that after his deployment to Afghanistan, he would not be able to return to his job at BLB Resources. Ziober figured that USERRA would protect him from such apparent discrimination, but after he filed suit for wrong termination, BLB Resources countered that Ziober had signed an agreement earlier with the company agreeing to binding arbitration, and so the case was dismissed out of court.
In other cases, it can be hard to prove that a company’s decision not to rehire a reservist is discriminatory, as opposed to performance-based. The burden of proof to show that the company is acting in a discriminatory manner is on the reservist.
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