Some returning troops butt heads with boss

[InkAddict]

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1063704917200760.xml

Miles Benson
Newhouse News Service

Washington - Thousands of Reservist and National Guard troops returning from active duty in the war on terrorism are complaining that their civilian employers don't always welcome them home with open arms.

The committee had to step in on behalf of Warrant Officer Andrew Filson, who flies Blackhawk helicopters for the Ohio National Guard. In civilian life, Filson supervises 18 operators taking customer service calls for Time Warner Cable in Kettering, Ohio.

Filson said Time Warner objected to the number of training days he was required to be gone from his job each month to maintain aircraft proficiency and kept demanding that he make up the time away from the job. "They really put me through the wringer on this one," said Filson, 38, who will begin a 10-month deployment to Kosovo next May.

The Pentagon's Employers Support of the Guard and Reserves committee intervened, but Time Warner still resisted. Not until the case was sent to the Labor Department for formal action did more senior officials at the company agree to stop penalizing Filson.
"We are all being super patriots now," Wilson said. "Only in the last months, the real misery of war is coming home to roost, and it's not pretty. It's dirty, time-consuming, and there are no parades, and employers are starting to lose that fervor. Multiple call-ups, and the new extensions, and the current situation in Afghanistan and Iraq, and mix in the National Guard with nine months of airport duty, and you really start putting a strain on people. It's a matter of money. We'll see employers begin to reclassify jobs and tell them it no longer exists. It's the old corporate game."

Pentagon officials say disruptions have been minimal and insist that the vast majority of employers continue to cooperate, obey the law and understand the need for the Reserves and National Guard in the war against terrorism.

[bahrbearian]

1. TIme Warner is trying to make him re-enlist