Military Leave

RMarceaux

I have an employee that has only been employed with my company for 6 months. Do I need to offer him USERRA? Is their a length of service criteria he has to meet like FMLA requires (12 months of employment)??

Parabeagle

No, to both questions. Unless he is a temporary employee, he is covered under the Act from Day One. Visit [url]www.esgr.org[/url] for a detailed copy of the USERRA.

Beave

Parabeagle is exactly right - and when they return from their activation period, they are to be brought back as though they were never gone.

Don D

Right, when he 'decides' to come back. They have up to 90 days to return. That's entirely too much entitlement. We have one who we know is back but he's lounging around watching the deadline. Patriotism aside, we have a production facility to run here.

Balloonman

Don,
Maybe you will get oh so lucky and he will blow it by a day or two because he will mess up the count due to leap year. ;-)
My $0.02 worth.
DJ The Balloonman

RMarceaux

So he does fall under the USERRA Act, then we have to keep him active in our system as if he was still here.

Do we have to also pay for his health insurance premium? I am a little confused about this part.

Parabeagle

This is where things get a little dicey. Generally, if you customarily pay your employees' health premiums I think you're only on the hook to pay them for leaves of absence of a month or less (e.g., summer camp, etc.) For longer durations, I think you only have to offer them COBRA continuation. However, as a practical matter, the employee is covered by the government the moment he goes on duty and they are responsible for his medical care as long as he is on active duty. I really suggest you should check out [url]www.esgr.org[/url]. Most of the questions you pose are probably answered there and my knowledge is a couple of years old.

Pork

RMARCEAUX: Medical is the only area of benefits to which the ee has to elect COBRA COVERAGE, which must be offered and he must accept or decline. Make sure he has properly cleared out with you and he has given any written notification of his military leave. Even if he/she has not requested in writing to be placed on Military Leave do it anyway until he gets back.

We have two that have just returned back home and stationed away for the next 90 days to give them an opportunity to de-compress and living in the civil world again. Paid "killers" after Vietnam were not given de-comprssion time and some never got back to the real world and they stayed in the "killer mode" and sure hell. The time around the military units are rotating instead of soldiers rotating as individuals.

Our two will get a nice bonus when the return. Holidays not paid, vacation time lost, sick time lost, promotion and wage increase not awarded because they were gone. Medical insurance will be re-instated immediately upon application with no waiting period. Both have remained on our payroll, but with no pay due. Each has 90 days to provided copies of actual orders which prove after the fact qualification; they will be put back to work as long as they are physically/medically qualified. If no orders are ever provided they could be terminated after the 90 days.

Do it wrong and it can be messy. Received lawyer notice just yesterday from our ee who is now working in an access position because he went to Bosnia, but checked out of the net here as a voluntary quit, which alloed him to collect his sick leave, vacation pay, and access to his 401K monies as a terminated employee. Upon returning he took over 140 days to re-apply for his position and he did it with an attorney, who accuses us of violation of USERRA, A FEDERAL LAW.

If you can not prove with out a doubt that the ee has quit, then transfer the ee to your inactive rolls on your payroll account until there is an after the fact re-application to return to your employment full time.

"DANDY DON'S GUY" is playing with a snake and it will bite him if he misses one minute of the allotted time for action.

TALKING FROM EXPERIENCE, PORK