I got curious and just started googling on the internet machine. Canada has some pretty specific federal and provincial law protecting reservists. I know I have very specific details in my jobs CBA regarding military call up as well.
Basic breakdown for Alberta is:
- Eligible employees can take time off work without pay without risk of losing their job.
- Employers must grant reservist leave to eligible employees and give them their same, or equivalent, job back when the employee returns to work.
- Employers aren’t required to pay wages or benefits during leave, unless stated in an employment contract or collective agreement.
- Employees on reservist leave are considered to be continuously employed for the purposes of calculating years of service.
An employee may take reservist leave for the following operations or activities:
- deployment to a Canadian forces operation outside Canada
- deployment to a Canadian forces operation inside Canada that is assisting with an emergency or the aftermath of an emergency
- annual training, included related travel time
- other operations set out as such in the Employment Standards Regulation by the Minister
Reservist leave
Eligible employees who are reservists can take leave for deployments and training.www.alberta.ca
I got curious too, and looked around online to see what kind of laws (if any) were in place in the United States. We do have the Uniformed Services Employment and Re-employment Act of 1994, which mostly pertains to the Selective Service Act of 1948.
In practice, none of it is very pertinent to most people, but some things may come up, such as when one of my high school teachers had a husband was a military reservist who had the potential for getting called up to help do whatever my country did with Iraq in 2003 (the details of how/why being inappropriate to discuss on HF). The 1994 law doesn't spell out much, according to my reading of it, and this being the USA, the burden of proof generally lies on the claimant, which makes it even harder to prove discrimination for someone without means really.
The rest should go without much saying about how it works in practice here. I'm reasonably certain we're on more or less the same page anyway, either way.
