I heard third hand something about a guy who was with SWA, did the reserve thing once a month, missed too many trips with SWA during his first year there and they fired him. After a lawyer and court got involved, he's back at SWA, and is "happy as can be" or something to that affect.
Regardless of the protections afforded reservists, how does the industry overall view guys who get hired, then go off for reserve duty not long after being hired, and then come back 90, 180, 360 days later? At this point in my career, I'd be crazy to not take the reserve retirment, and it would be fairly easy for me to get hired by a regional, jump in with a reserve unit and get activated for 90 or 180 days, perhaps more, and then go back to the regional with a little bit more seniority. I would consider that gaming the game, and assume the airlines see through that as well, even if legally there's not much they can do about it.
I guess what I'm getting at is that, legally, they could wait the 5 years required by law to fire me, and then when I try to get another job, I find myself blackballed...