Are you legally obligated as an employer to honor military leave if an
employee did not notify you they were in the reserves during the
hiring process??

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 24 Jul 2004 19:24 PDT

Hello,

nelson-ga, who offered a comment, below, is not a Google Answers
researcher, but nonetheless, the comment does point towards a good
resource.

What additional information do you need at this point?  Let us know,
so we can provide the best answer possible to your question.

Thanks.

pafalafa-ga

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Request for Question Clarification by tutuzdad-ga on 24 Jul 2004 20:02 PDT

What exactly do you mean by "honor military leave"? Do you mean allow
the service member to leave and be assured or re-employment upon
return?

To answer effectively we'd need to know the whole story. Tell us the
details. Did the employ join while employed or was he alreay a member?
Was he in the inactive reserve and got recalled or was he already in
the active reserve and just never mentioned it? When did he FIRST
mention his military obligation and how much notice did he give you
before he must report for duty? How much notice, if any, was HE given
that he had this obligation?

Regards;
tutuzdad-ga

Yes, you are obligated.  You have no choice.  By the way, it is
illegal to discriminate based on veteran status, so it would have been
against the law to ask.

http://www.osc.gov/userra.htm

My guess is nelson is correct, except it is not ilegal to ask. If the
employee lies and says no guard or officer obligation, then demands 2
weeks off a few months later, the employer has no legal recource,
except the employee can be fired (or asked to resign) at a different
time, for a different reason, if a believable reason can be found. It
would be difficult to prove the 2 weeks off contributed to the
decission to terminate, if the employer says it was not a factor. If
my analysis is wrong then guard members who lied on their
application/interviws, can not be fired no matter how unresonable
their behavor.   Neil

"USERRA prohibits an employer from denying any benefit of employment
on the basis of an individual?s membership, application for
membership, performance of service, application for service, or
obligation for service in the uniformed services."  -- Seems illegal
to ask.

"Benefit" meaning the actual offering of employment itself.  I'm no
lawyer or veteran, so I could be wrong, but I don't think I am. 
Employers have many quaetions they can't ask.