Federal Manager's Daily Report

In a case that underscores agency obligations under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, the Office of Special Counsel has asked the MSPB to order the reinstatement of a Postal Service employee, saying that the agency’s failure to reemploy him after he returned from active military duty violated that law.

The complaint argues that after the employee, a letter carrier, was discharged from his state Air National Guard, he was eligible for prompt reemployment and that the USPS treated him “as an employee throughout his military service and gave no indication that it no longer considered him an employee until after he exercised his reemployment rights under USERRA.”

“The law is clear that military service and employment must be compatible,” the OSC said. “OSC will continue to pursue cases in which federal agencies fail to meet their obligations to employees who also serve in the military.”

The employee first complained to the Labor Department, which found a violation of the law but the USPS refused to reinstate him. That department then referred the case to the OSC, which has authority to request that the MSPB order reinstatement.

The OSC is seeing a retroactive hiring with back pay and benefits.