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Your Job Is Held, Your Seniority Is Not Frozen — and the Civil Air Patrol Is Inside It

An employer may not discharge or discriminate against a guard member, a reservist, a coast guard member or a civil air patrol member for that membership, nor hinder them from performing duty. Ordered duty carries a leave of absence, and on return the employer must restore the position or one of like seniority, status and pay. The absence counts as leave with pay-status protections: vacation, sick leave and bonus rights are unaffected.

Verified August 23, 2026

What this benefit is

An employer may not discharge or discriminate against a guard member, a reservist, a coast guard member or a civil air patrol member for that membership, nor hinder them from performing duty. Ordered duty carries a leave of absence, and on return the employer must restore the position or one of like seniority, status and pay. The absence counts as leave with pay-status protections: vacation, sick leave and bonus rights are unaffected.

What it's worth: Reinstatement to the same or a like position, with vacation, sick leave and bonus rights intact

  • The value is the job, so no dollar figure is claimed. What the section adds beyond simple reinstatement is that the absence must be treated as absence WITH leave, which is where accrued benefits are usually lost.
  • The section does not require the employer to pay wages during the absence. It requires the position back and the benefit rights unimpaired.

Who is entitled to it

  • You serve or served, which is what the section protects.
  • You are in this state.

Not sure whether that describes you?

Answer a few questions about this benefit specifically — we only ask what this one actually depends on, and we stop as soon as we know.

How to claim it

Deadline: On completion of the duty or service
  1. 1Keep the orders. The leave of absence attaches to a member ORDERED to temporary duty or service as §29A.1 subsections 3, 8 or 12 define it, or to a civil air patrol member performing duty under §29A.3A.
  2. 2Give the employer evidence of satisfactory completion of the duty or service, and be ready to show you remain qualified to perform the duties of the position. The section makes both a condition of restoration.
  3. 3Ask for the same job first. The employer must restore the position held before the leave, or employ you in a position of LIKE seniority, status and pay — the second limb is an alternative for the employer, not a downgrade you must accept without one.
  4. 4Say the words "absence with leave". The section construes the period that way and provides it shall in no way affect vacation, sick leave, bonus or other employment benefits relating to your particular employment. That is the sentence to quote when an accrual is zeroed out.
  5. 5One exception is written in: the restoration duty does not apply where the employment is of a TEMPORARY nature. Seasonal and fixed-term engagements sit outside it.
  6. 6If you are insured as a dependant on a group accident or health policy as a full-time student under twenty-five, subsection 2 treats you as continuously insured for the purpose of returning to that dependant cover after the duty ends — the trap the section closes is the student who deploys, loses full-time status, and is refused reinstatement on the family policy.
  7. 7The prohibition is broader than firing. A person may not discriminate because of the membership, and an employer may not hinder or prevent the member from performing military service or civil air patrol duty that proper authority calls them to perform.
Form
Written evidence of satisfactory completion of the duty or service, given to the employer
File with
Your employer, on return
No renewal
Once granted it does not need renewing.
CorrectionThis is routinely folded into "the federal USERRA covers that anyway". It does not cover all of it. §29A.43 names the CIVIL AIR PATROL alongside the guard, the organized reserves and the coast guard in regular, reserve and auxiliary components — civil air patrol duty performed under §29A.3A is not federal uniformed service, so a member relying only on the federal statute has no reinstatement right at all.
Worth knowingThe benefit-accrual sentence is the part employers get wrong. Treating the period as absence WITHOUT leave, and so resetting vacation or sick-leave accrual, is contrary to the section even where the job itself is given back.
Known gapThe section states the duty but names no enforcement body, no time limit for complaining and no remedy. Whether a member sues in district court or complains to a state office, and within what period, is not settled by the text and was not verified this session.

Sources

This finder provides an informational match, not a government eligibility determination. The responsible agency decides your application.