(Spc. Linsay Burnett/1st BCT Public Affairs Office)
By now you have heard that if you are a woman or minority here in Scott Walker's Wisconsin that your ability to sue an employer for discrimination has been greatly reduced. That is bad, but it gets worse. The law, as written, harms veterans.
According to federal law, women and other protected classes can sue for back pay and punitive damages in federal court; however, veterans can only sue for back pay. The outlet that veterans had around that was that they could sue for punitive damages in state court. Not anymore. Imagine you are a reservist or national guardsman. You have been deployed multiple times. Per the EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS AND BENEFITS OF FEDERAL CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES WHO PERFORM ACTIVE MILITARY DUTY:
Upon return or restoration, an employee generally is entitled to be treated as though he or she had never left for purposes of rights and benefits based upon length of service. This means that the employee must be considered for career ladder promotions, and the time spent in the military will be credited for seniority, successive within-grade increases, probation, career tenure, annual leave accrual rate, and severance pay. An employee who was on a temporary appointment serves out the remaining time, if any, left on the appointment. (The military activation period does not extend the civilian appointment.)
You are finally home after a year in Afghanistan and you go to get your job back. You were a mid-level employee pulling down $50-$60K a year. Your employer puts you in the mail room. You can sue to get your position back, you can sue for back pay. You cannot sue for damages to cover things like your home being foreclosed on while you were making $15K a year in the mail room.
According to the author of the bill, state Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend):
I didn't know about the federal limits on veterans, but it wouldn't have changed my mind, because fewer lawsuits will mean more jobs for everyone, including soldiers returning from war. Employers facing punitive damages in court is a bad thing for jobs, and veterans want jobs. We're going back to the way it was two years ago and nobody thought two years ago that is was horrible to be a veteran.
Sen. Grothman, as a veteran there are some choice words I would like to use for you (most learned from drill sergeants at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and Blackhats at Fort Benning, Georgia, and Fort Campbell, Kentucky); however, my mother raised me better than that.
Our veterans have been under terrible pressure with constant deployments over the last 11 years. What may not have been a problem 11 years ago in regards to veterans and jobs is an issue today.
Jeffrey Hines, president of the Wisconsin Employment Lawyers Association, states:
This has been viewed as a women's pay issue, but it affects a broad range of classes. It's a huge kick in the teeth to the people who serve our country. [V]eterans who are mistreated after returning home from stressful deployments are very vulnerable to the kinds of emotional pain and suffering that compensatory damages are meant to address.
I wouldn't expect Sen. Grothman to get this. He never served in the military. Nor would I expect Scott Walker, who also never served a day in his life, to get it ... especially when he says something like this:
[This law] simply removed the duplicative and unnecessarily costly process of seeking punitive and compensatory damages in state court."
All individuals in Wisconsin will be treated the same as they have been for decades.[Changes in the law do] not single out any group of individuals.
Changes in this law have singled out a group of individuals: veterans. Veterans could only turn to the state courts. That option, while only in place for two years, has been removed. This isn't about creating jobs. It is about money. The next time you hear a Republican, especially Scott Walker and Glenn Grothman, going on about how they "support the troops," remember that neither of these men supports the troops. All they support are rich benefactors and the almighty dollar.