Coolbrz

Not trying to argue but just to look at it from a different perspective...if the intent of these types of leave (and laws) is to encourage people to pursue things that are in the communities "best interest" (child rearing, military service, jury duty, etc) wouldn't that apply here? Jury duty...civic responsibility (paid, albeit a small amount) still gets paid from the company. As Rick said above that's fairly obvious. Now what if someone makes less in the military than they do at their airline gig? Should they have to decide between serving their country and their livelihood? The government has decided that they want to reduce as many barriers to military service as they can (whether on the backs of private enterprise is right or wrong is another discussion). If the company is in a position to offer paid absence for one thing they don't want them to cherry pick out military service.

I say all that to say it will be interesting to see what the jury decides. I think it's likely this ends up in two places. 1) Companies do away with all other types of discretionary paid leave. and/or 2) there is a cap on the number of days or payment amount. I.e you get your 12 drills and Annual Training paid but then uncle sam can pick up the rest. Or some companies will make up pay differential between mil and civ. As a data point the federal technician program has this where they will pay "military leave" for up to 15 days every year. Which seems reasonable. I've also worked for a company that will be the difference between base pay and your civ salary. Meets the intent without "unfairly" burdening the company with expecting them to provide a salary to an employee that doesn't generate revenue and has SOME discretion over their schedule. As in most things there can be a middle ground if both sides are willing to be reasonable. Doesn't have to be binary.