nwaf16dude

Can't really speak for Lancer, but I think his point is that an airline would rightly be ****ed if you you got a job with the intention of immediately dropping military leave and not working there for 5 years. USERRA will protect you if you do that, unless the company can prove that you never intended to work there when you got hired.

When I got furloughed and managed to pick up long-term full-time orders, I called the Reserve Officer's Association's main lawyer to talk about what my options were if I got close to a mil retirement and I was getting close to my 5 year limit. The guy I was talking to actually had a very large part in writing the USERRA law. He is a great defender of reserve guys, but he made it very clear that USERRA was written to protect part-time military guys from losing benefits from required military duty. It wasn't written to allow reservists to retire from the military. His opinion... getting hired and immediately dropping mil leave is an abuse of USERRA, unless extraordinary circumstances exist. He advised me to return to the airline if I hit the 5 year limit unless I had valid, marked, war-effort orders.

A couple of other points... There was a time, back in the late nineties when the only way to get a good guard or reserve job was to take a full-time position for 18-24 months or so. Then, unless you were a jackass, the guys in the unit would help you get an airline job and you would transition to a part-time mil gig. It is completely opposite now. To get a good full-time guard or reserve gig in a desirable location, you have to join the unit as a part-timer and get in line for the full time job. Make no mistake, if it is a good job in a good location, the line is long.

Also, commander's don't want to hire a bunch of part-timers that don't have another way to put food on the table. They know they have limited (and dwindling) money to keep you working, and they don't want a unit full of guys begging for more man-days. It adds a lot of stress to your job when you have to spend most days trying to scrounge more money to keep your part-timers employed full-time.

Anyway... that's a lot of words to get to this bottom line... It would be a bad idea to plan on doing this.

MCFlyer

Thanks for all of the information. I am still getting my arms wrapped around all of the 'post active duty' options and this will/has helped build my overall SA to how the system works. The only thing that I am 100% certain of at this point is that I have no idea what the future holds for me and my family IRT 'decision 2012' (EAS) as I have now dubbed it. Every option has at least one thing that is highly desirable...i.e. stability, flying quality, family time, $$, ect... which when it all adds up will result in the only thing that really matters..........

Thanks again!

Stay in, get out, stay in, get out.................over and over and over

skyward80

My experience has been that being a reservist is not exactly a "plus" with many employers because they are worried the person they hire might disappear for extended periods of time. I have done a careful word dance at more than one interview, but I am also not in the airline industry. Giving your employer the equivalent of a middle finger wave right after being hired simply because you have federal job protection may not make you popular.

Skyward80

SaltyDog

What Lancer is referring to, and NWAF16dude addressed very well, is that DOD via the DOD run Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR) specifically talk of a "shared' employee. Can tell you, ESGR and the service chiefs would say it violates the intent of USERRA. Have met CAPT Sam Wright, JAGC USN ret and ROA ATTY and USERRA guru and mentor. Agree with the comments nwaf16 stated.

Lots of diplomacy required by Guard/Reserve employees to keep employers from discriminating and violating USERRA. Someone who checks out of AD, snags a Reserve/Guard job and a pilot job at Airline XX, and then immediately pulls out the "see ya in 5 years' leaves a bad taste in the HR dept. Many of us see it as a 'Buddy is half a word". Forget ever being able to recommend a friend to your 'dream job', and you may well have screwed someone else out of a job coming off AD since HR can discriminate and hide the fact.
Next of all, if your buds who recommended you to XX Airlines that you now are a new hire, and you do the 'see ya in 5', HR will undoubtedly never allow those folks to ever recommend anyone again, especially anyone in with mil experience. So that is another "buddy is half a word", solo mission that burns the rest of us.
Now, if you happened to be a newhire, and your name gets pulled for a truly involuntary set of orders for a year or two, everyone in the play knows the differences. You would be OK, but we are talking the sandbox or something equally non desirable.

hindsight2020

That's why I won't touch getting a civilian job with a 10 foot pole. Too much hassle. They all speak a big game about USERRA, but I don't think that piece of paper does anything to promote non-punitive outlooks for the servicemember when it comes down to the real world application of the policy in the civilian setting. The civilian employers wipe their rear with it.

Add to the mix the whole TFI selling out of the Reserves, and you have an outright untenable construct. All units now want 6-8 days but nobody's figured out that increasingly the bulk of your people are 9-5 banker job types and no longer the airline pilot centric types that can get a block of 4 days straight during weekdays, ergo the format the whole thing got designed for in the first place. And you want me to go "work" for Eagle just so I can starve, commute both ways and have the schedule compatibility to give you a consecutive block of days Tuesday-Friday? Eff that. I'll just starve and not have to commute and/or juggle one ball instead of two fro my troubles (sts).

This is creating a really hostile environment for the 9-5 types and you'll never be able to prove you're not getting ahead in the civilian job because you're the guy who's constantly taking off during the week to meet your military requirements. Civilian employers only think "finance officer one weekend a month, which is when we're not open anyways". They can't wrap their heads around the aircrew with 3 times the time requirements, and more importantly, they sure don't care to support a guy like that out of their own hide. Exercises and deployments? Forget it. So I'll just trough until I get an ART job, somewhere. It sucks working my butt for 60 cents on the dollar for an AD lifestyle, but at least I don't have to juggle two balls (STS) where both bosses are constantly ****ed off at me for not being able to meet their mutually exclusive expectations.

TFI is a failure. And the more and more the demographics shift away from the airline pilot model, the more intransigent this issue of meeting increasing military requirements is going to get. At some point there really is no incentive not to pursue Active Duty in lieu of juggling two bosses. It's a damn shame.

SaltyDog

voodoo,
You haven't dealt much with the DOD service chiefs and read the USAF letter yet have you? They have a remarkably different tone.

Have defended alot of folks under USERRA, but USERRA can be abused and DOD has been known to remove USERRA abusers, especially when employers raise the heat level and it becomes a habit. Also, you are expected to work some of your military committment on your days off. We are all volunteers, DOD expects the burden to be shared. If you expect only to serve the military on your civilian employer work days, DOD won't support you.
You can individually get away with alot, but you make it tougher on the rest of the mil folks at the company.
Flame away, but will be happy to have a conference call with the DOL VETS office, ESGR in your region, and your commander as I have so many times. It is a real eye opener after they read the statute, DOD instructions, DOD intent, etc. The increased challenges of the extended war has made DOD want much better relations with employers
SD


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Jamesl3451

Only if you plan on cashing a paycheck from both jobs....give US a break!

ronnie75

Seems like the sentiment on this thread is you can only use mil leave if it is disadvantageous to you. I guess the voluntary portion of USERRA is meant for only those that volunteer for pain... Seriously?

ronnie75

James,
What are you talking about?

SaltyDog

Been dealing with USERRA, DOL Vets, ESGR, HR Deps, Labor, Unions for many years while still serving either protecting those in my command, or fellow pilots at my company.
Usually it is an education issue of a shared, voluntary service. It is a challenging issue. USERRA is simply designed to protect an all volunteer force. Abuse is obvious and affects the rest of those serving and we need to be responsible to our fellow servicemembers. Our actions is felt by others. Good and bad.
Am not easy on my employer, we hold their feet to the fire on USERRA, but
when we have a fellow pilot take Thanksgiving off, the company calls the commander as allowed under USERRA, and the commander says they did not need the employee to serve on Thanksgiving, the conclusion is clear.
Or being on Reserve and the pilot calls in military every three days to be completely unusable to the company creates a backlash to the rest of the military bubbas.
DOD intervenes because they don't like the bad rap, ESGR agrees with the company, and when the employer genuinely abuses USERRA, we have to go through the bad apples routine. Frankly, that gets old because it emboldens to the employers to get even, and they can make life difficult even with USERRA protections.