He’s Back, You’re Outta Here

Posted on March 19th, 2007 by Christine.
Categories: Hilarious.

The familiar “You’re Fired.” We expect to hear those words, laced with melodrama, slip from the mouth of Donald Trump in his revered board room to some hapless apprentice who’s been waiting for it to happen since the day they moved into the apprentice commune in an effort to claim their 15 seconds of fame. We want to hear those words. We enjoy hearing them. We smile and clap when some whiny bitch like Omarosa is sent packing. But what about Joe?

Joe is a typical, well, Joe. He’s a nice a guy. He’s got a family to support. He works hard and always gets to work ten minutes early. He stays late when the boss asks him to. He hasn’t even used one of his sick days yet. But last week, an unsuspecting Joe walked into work, dressed in his freshly pressed uniform, and found out he’d been… well… fired. Why? Because of Tom. Who is Tom? Never heard of him? Neither had Joe. But a year and a half ago, Tom had Joe’s position at that company before Joe did. At that time, Tom– who was still on active duty in the military– got called to Iraq. Tom left to do his altruistic duty, and now, a year and a half later, he’s back. And Tom wants his old job back. And despite the fact that Tom was paralyzed after a jeep wreck in Iraq and can no longer perform the duties of his job, under the federal Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, Joe’s boss must give Tom his job back… and if he can’t perform Joe’s job any longer, he must give Tom a different job– one he can perform… so Joe’s boss decides to cut Sharon– a secretary who has been with the company for 20 years and is great at her job– and give Tom her job.

So essentially, the federal Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act forces employers to give back the same job to a war vet that he/she had before she left to go to war. An employer, even if he/she only employs a few people, must rehire returning veterans for the jobs they had before or - due to the statute’s “escalator provision” - into more senior positions they would have attained had they not been called to active duty. If they can no longer physically or mentally perform their old job, the employer must find them one they can do even if it means firing someone else. And if there’s no existing job the vet can do, the employer must create one. If the employer doesn’t, the vet can sue. The person let go for no apparent reason other than the vet needed to be given a job upon returning, can’t sue the employer for wrongful termination.

Now… I understand that people would be less likely to join the military and leave for sometimes years to go fight for our country, if they were going to have to give up their livelihood to do it. But this whole concept sort of flies in the face of capitalism. An employer has a right to make decisions that will ensure the longevity of his/her business. Creating a job for someone when the company doesn’t need that job to survive, and the person (the vet) put into that position may not even be as skilled in doing it as someone else off the street, isn’t particularly fair to the employer. Nor is it fair to an employee who has done a good job for years and is being let go for no reason other than the employer being forced to find something for the vet to do.

I’m not saying that war vets shouldn’t get a few extra perks that the rest of us don’t. I’m completely fine with that. I’m even fine with our taxes paying for most of those perks. But when government starts putting that burden on individual businesspeople who are trying to make their small, independent companies succeed… companies that perhaps support five or ten other families of five or ten honest, hard-working employees, I see a problem. Now for a large company, the impact is less because there is a greater number of positions available or turning over at any given time and there are more positions within the company. But for small companies, this forced return hiring practice can have a tremendous impact.

If I were an employer, knowing this, I’d think twice about hiring an enlisted person at all, to avoid having to deal with this down the line. And I don’t think that was what our government intended to promote by putting this law into effect.

I don’t have a solution for the problem… I see it more as a bigger issue of how much control should government have on who an employer must hire and how many decisions is the government willing to take away from employers– the ones who have the most invested in succeeding. After all, if having to rehire vets has a negative impact on the company, will the government step up and bail the company out? Nope. So maybe these decisions should be left in the hands of the people who care most about the company and we should find another way to help job place the men and women who have served in war.

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