Originally Posted by
gollum
There are some seriously dumb people out there. Why would someone even think that mil leave (where you are getting paid by the gov) should also be paid by your company from which you are not working for those days. Sick leave is a paid benefit as a result of being employed and jury duty is unpaid by the gov so the company thought it was important to fulfill a civic duty so they are paying people.
I agree that the sick leave application is an unintended consequence of the language of the law. But trying to read too much "intent" into the letter of the law is a slippery slope that's leads to judicial activism... they probably need to just amend the law in this case.
The intent was that mil would broadly receive the same general benefits as other employee categories. In the case of jury duty that's a civic obligation just like mil duty and should be comparable. Real-world example, the company offers pay (and bennies) for pregnancy leave because it's PC to do so, but doesn't extend the same to the baby-killers.
I would be OK with amending the law such that it's "make whole", to avoid double-dipping windfalls. Ie, the company just makes the difference between mil base pay and your "normal" civilian pay, in those circumstances where they pay other types of leave.
Fundamentally you also have to understand the .gov perspective: If employers in general can make reservists feel explicitly or implicitly marginalized or unwelcome, members will get sick of it and quit the mil. Most of us can actually make equal or more money pure civilian if we just refocus the time and energy we devote to the reserves to hustle on civvy-street.
The .gov likes having the reserve and especially the guard for civil emergencies... they'd rather create a burden for employers than a manning/capability burden for themselves at the next hurricane, flood, pandemic, riot, etc.