At the Sykes Enterprises call center in Bismarck, N.D., Ron Vander Wal worked as a telephone customer technician until his National Guard unit was called to active duty early last year and sent to Iraq.
Vander Wal served as a combat engineer, at one point helping to build a bridge across the Tigris River. When his 200th Engineer Company was shipped back home in March, he informed Sykes he was returning to his job.
But Vander Wal allegedly was told that no positions were available and that other veterans were "in the same boat," even as Sykes was advertising for new hires in the Bismarck Tribune and on the radio. Last week, at the ripe old age of 23, Vander Wal sued Sykes for lost wages and benefits, "humiliation, betrayal of trust and contempt for his service to his country."
At Sykes' headquarters in Tampa, spokeswoman Andrea Burnett checked with the company's Bismarck center and said Vander Wal had returned to work Tuesday and is again a Sykes employee. Sykes makes a point of honoring veterans and law enforcement officers, she said. As evidence, she cited an upcoming annual "Our Heroes" luncheon at the Tampa Convention Center that is co-sponsored by Sykes.
That's not good enough, said John Gosbee, Vander Wal's attorney, given how Vander Wal was initially treated - before the lawsuit - by Sykes. The Bismarck lawsuit seeks $500,000 or more in damages. Vander Wal also wants Sykes, which is shrinking its call center business in North Dakota (as well as across most of the country) to hand over any profits from the sale of buildings paid for by Bismarck taxpayers to a scholarship fund for returning veterans.
"It was disgraceful to "dis' a returning veteran," Gosbee said.
What a fiasco. This could have been a simple "welcome home" for Vander Wal and a patriotic "welcome back" by Sykes. Federal laws, including the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994, are supposed to protect soldiers' jobs while they are deployed.
With the Persian Gulf War ending in the early 1990s, most U.S. companies should know the drill and be aware of the major legal requirements and basic obligations owed soldiers returning to the workplace.
It still does not always work that way. While most National Guardsmen and reservists called into active duty are returning to their jobs without a hitch, some vets still run into problems with their civilian employers. Here's just a few notable tales from newspapers across the country:
In March, Army Reserve Sgt. Adam Black returned to Washington state from a year of active duty in Texas only to find his warehouse position at an interior design firm had been cut to six hours a week. "When I left, they were great," Black told the Seattle Times. "They gave me a cake, a card and the whole shebang and said, "Your job will be here when you come back." But upon his return, he was told his job was trimmed because of the weak economy. Black's response: "Stressful."
Dr. Mark Anstadt was a heart and lung surgeon at Medical College of Georgia Hospital in Augusta. He was also a lieutenant colonel with the Army Reserve's 4005th U.S. Army Hospital in Houston. He went on active duty just before the Iraq war was launched, handling stateside surgeries for Army surgeons deployed overseas. But when he returned, the Augusta Chronicle reported, the medical college effectively shunned him and cut him off from his patients and his research funds.
Anstadt's response? Like Vander Wal's case against Sykes, Anstadt sued his employer for violating the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act.
In the town of Rockton in Illinois, police officer Jeremiah Johnson was fired last year - 11 days after being activated by the Illinois National Guard 333rd Military Police Company and spending a year in Iraq. Town leaders say he was fired for poor job performance, but Johnson begs to differ, reported the Rockford Register Star. And state officials, thus far, are on Johnson's side and clamoring for his reinstatement.
Not all returning vets have tales of woe. In Charlotte, N.C., Bank of America gave employee Brian Pitts - back from guarding al-Qaida prisoners at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba - two weeks to spend with his family before rejoining the bank, according to the Charlotte Observer.
In St. Petersburg, seven soldiers have returned to their civilian work at Progress Energy Florida. Six other employees are still on active duty. All of them received pay from their company to make up the difference between their normal wages and the lower compensation received while on active duty.
If other companies do not choose to be so generous, they should at least become more aware of the federal and state laws protecting the employment rights of returning soldiers. With so many National Guard and reserve units still in, or bound for, Iraq and Afghanistan, disputes are sure to soar in the months ahead as more soldier-employees finish their tours of duty and rightfully expect to regain their jobs and work status.
Both employer and returning employee have specific obligations under the federal laws protecting returning soldiers, says Tampa labor attorney Robert Donovan at the Ruden McClosky law firm. While companies must preserve a worker's job, the worker must in turn give timely notice that he or she intends to return to the job.
"This issue needs to be on everybody's radar screen," advises Donovan.
Let's at least learn that much from the Bismarck brawl.
