Editor,
The last thing any of our military reserve personnel deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan want to worry about is keeping their jobs at home, but it is a concern after so much time spent in service to our country.
Maine has sent more than 2,600 Army and Air National Guard members to these theaters, and many expect to continue serving short deployments, or temporary duty assignments, once they return to their families.
By the time this edition of the Lakes Region Suburban Weekly is printed, the Maine Legislature may have finally passed a proposal I sponsored to give members of the Maine National Guard and Reserve more time to rest or spend with their families before heading back to their “real” jobs during training or temporary duty.
I brought this bill forward after hearing about a New Jersey man who fell asleep at the wheel and died following a shift his employer required him to work within eight hours of leaving training exercises in Virginia. There is a law that was supposed to allow him safe travel and rest time before he had to go to work, but a federal court sided with the employer, saying the man could have been fired if he didn’t work.
While working on this legislation with the Labor Committee, Senator Bryant and I collaborated with employers and National Guard members to come up with a good answer to this problem, since other states have also strengthened their laws on this issue. Once enacted, members of the Maine National Guard and Reserve personnel will have incremented time off according to the amount of time they serve on temporary duty, up to 31 days. All of these rest periods are preceded by safe travel time, and are optional for our service men and women.
Finally, committee members added employment protection for Guard members and reservists serving at the request of the Governor during state emergencies, something not currently covered by federal law.
The bottom line is that our service men and women and their families have already given up so much to serve our country, and the least we can do is offer peace of mind that their jobs will be waiting here when they return home, no matter how long they are gone.
Rep. Mark Bryant
House District 110
Part of Windham and Part of Gray
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