a

GAO

United States Government Accountability Office

Report to the Ranking Minority Member, 

Committee on Health, Education, Labor, 

and Pensions, U.S. Senate

October 2005 MILITARY 

PERSONNEL

Federal Management 

of Servicemember 

Employment Rights 

Can Be Further 

Improved

GAO-06-60
What GAO Found

United States Government Accountability Office

Why GAO Did This Study

Highlights

Accountability Integrity Reliability

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-60.

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact Derek B. 

Stewart (202) 512-5559 or 

stewartd@gao.gov. 

Highlights of GAO-06-60, a report to the 

Ranking Minority Member, Committee on 

Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, 

U.S. Senate 

October 2005

MILITARY PERSONNEL

Federal Management of Servicemember 

Employment Rights Can Be Further 

Improved 

Whether or not overall USERRA compliance has changed is difficult to 

firmly establish; however, the agencies that support or enforce USERRA 

have collected formal and informal complaint data and some employer 

support figures that provide limited insights into compliance. For example, 

DOL’s formal complaint numbers show a possible relationship with the level 

of the use of the reserve components and the number of complaints. DOD 

data show that some employers exceed USERRA requirements, but these 

data have limitations. DOD has only 1 full year of informal complaint data, so 

it will be several years before DOD can identify any meaningful trends in 

informal complaints. Because informal complaint figures have not been 

captured on a consistent basis, agencies lack the data necessary to identify 

total complaint trends. Furthermore, data from a 2004 DOD survey showed 

that at least 72 percent of National Guard and Reserve members with 

USERRA problems never sought assistance for their problems. This raises 

questions as to whether complaint numbers alone can fully explain USERRA 

compliance or employer support. Some recently added employment 

questions on DOD’s periodic surveys, if continued, offer the potential to 

provide insight into compliance and employer support issues. 

DOD, DOL, and OSC have educated hundreds of thousands of employers and 

servicemembers about USERRA, but the efficiency and effectiveness of this 

outreach is hindered by a lack of employer information. DOD’s reserve 

component members who can be involuntarily called to active duty are 

required to enter their civilian employer information into a DOD database 

but the services have not enforced this requirement and as of August 2005, 

about 40 percent of the members had not entered the required information. 

Without information about the full expanse of servicemember employers, 

federal agencies have conducted general outreach efforts but have been 

limited in their ability to efficiently and effectively target educational 

outreach efforts to employers who actually have servicemember employees. 

Agency abilities to efficiently and effectively address servicemember 

complaints are hampered by incompatible data systems, a reliance on paper 

files, and a segmented process that lacks visibility. The systems that DOD, 

DOL, DOJ, and OSC use to track USERRA complaints are not compatible. As 

a result, data collection efforts are sometimes duplicated, and DOL relies on 

its paper files when transferring or reviewing complaints. This slows the 

transfer of complaints and limits the ability of DOL managers to conduct 

effective, timely oversight of complaint files. Furthermore, segmented 

responsibilities and lack of visibility have led agencies to focus on outputs 

rather than results. For example, agencies measure complaint processing 

times but not the elapsed time servicemembers actually wait to have their 

complaints fully addressed. GAO analysis of 52 complaints that had been 

closed and reopened two or more times found that recorded processing 

times averaged 103 days but the actual elapsed times that servicemembers 

waited to have their complaints fully addressed averaged 619 days. 

The Uniformed Services 

Employment and Reemployment 

Rights Act (USERRA) of 1994 

protects millions of people, largely 

National Guard and Reserve 

members, as they transition 

between their federal duties and 

their civilian employment. The act 

is intended to eliminate or 

minimize employment 

disadvantages to civilian careers 

that can result from service in the 

uniformed services. This report 

examines the extent to which the 

Departments of Defense (DOD), 

Labor (DOL), Justice (DOJ), and 

the Office of Special Counsel 

(OSC) have achieved this purpose, 

specifically, the extent to which the 

agencies (1) have data that indicate 

the level of compliance with 

USERRA, (2) have efficiently and 

effectively conducted educational 

outreach, and (3) have efficiently 

and effectively addressed 

servicemember complaints.

What GAO Recommends

GAO is making a number of 

recommendations to better identify 

USERRA compliance and employer 

support trends, more efficiently 

and effectively educate employers, 

increase agency responsiveness, 

and process USERRA complaints. 

DOD, DOL, and OSC concurred 

with the recommendations. DOJ 

did not comment on the draft 

report. To encourage results rather 

than outputs, Congress should 

consider designating a single office 

to maintain visibility over the entire 

complaint resolution process. 
Page i GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

Contents

Letter 1

Results in Brief 4

Background 8

Agencies’ Available Data Provides Limited Insight in Overall 

USERRA Compliance and Employer Support 20

Agencies Have Conducted Educational Outreach, but Efficiency and 

Effectiveness of Outreach Has Been Hindered by Lack of 

Employer Information 27

Agencies’ Ability to Efficiently and Effectively Address Complaints 

Hampered by Incompatible Data Systems, Reliance on Paper 

Files, and Lack of Visibility 33

Conclusions 38

Recommendations for Executive Action 40

Matter for Congressional Consideration 41

Agencies Comments and Our Evaluation 42

Appendixes

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 46

Appendix II: Professional Backgrounds of the ESGR’s Volunteer 

Ombudsmen 53

Appendix III: Department of Labor Form 1010 56

Appendix IV: DOD’s Outreach Programs 59

Appendix V: GAO’s Survey of the ESGR’s Volunteer Ombudsmen Including 

Results 62

Appendix VI: DOL’s USERRA Information Poster 67

Appendix VII: Comments from the Department of Defense 68

Appendix VIII: Comments from the Department of Labor 71

Appendix IX: Comments from the Office of Special Counsel 73

Appendix X: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 81

Tables Table 1: Formal Complaints Opened by the Department of Labor, 

Fiscal Years 1989 through 2004 22

Table 2: Data from GAO’s Survey of the ESGR Ombudsmen 48
Contents

Page ii GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

Table 3: Employment Status of the ESGR’s Ombudsmen (as of 

April 6, 2005) 53

Table 4: The Primary Employers of the ESGR’s Ombudsmen (as of 

April 6, 2005) 54

Figures Figure 1: Process to Resolve a USERRA Complaint Using Federal 

Assistance 10

Figure 2: Percentages of Selected Reserve Members Surveyed Who 

Work for Various Types of Employers 17

Figure 3: Percentages of Selected Reserve Members Who Work for 

Employers of Various Sizes 18

Figure 4: Percentages of Ready Reserve Members Who Had 

Supplied Civilian Employment Information as of 

August 10, 2005 31

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Abbreviations

DMDC Defense Manpower Data Center

DOD Department of Defense

DOJ Department of Justice

DOL Department of Labor

ESGR Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve

OSC Office of Special Counsel

USERRA Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act

VETS Veterans' Employment and Training Service
Page 1 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, D.C. 20548

A

October 19, 2005 Letr

The Honorable Edward M. Kennedy

Ranking Minority Member 

Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

United States Senate

Dear Senator Kennedy,

The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act 

(USERRA) of 19941

 protects millions of individuals2 as they transition 

between their federal duties and their civilian employment. Prior to 

USERRA, reemployment rights were set forth in the Vietnam Era Veterans’ 

Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974.3

 Following the 1991 Gulf War, 

military servicemembers and employers flooded the government with 

questions and complaints concerning reemployment rights. In 1994, 

following a review of the effectiveness of the 1974 act, Congress passed 

USERRA to “encourage non-career service in the uniformed services by 

eliminating or minimizing the disadvantages to civilian careers and 

employment which can result from such service.” The act covers not only 

the more than 2 million members who have served in the reserve 

components4

 of the armed services since the act was passed, but also large 

numbers of active duty servicemembers and veterans, including those who 

served before the act’s passage. For example, citizens who left civilian jobs 

and signed active duty enlistment contracts following the events of 

September 11, 2001, retain reemployment rights under USERRA as long as 

they meet a few basic requirements. Among the eligibility requirements are 

(1) the absence of the receipt of a dishonorable or other disqualifying 

1

 Pub. L. No. 103-353, as amended, codified at 38 U.S.C. §§ 4301-4334.

2

 In addition to military servicemembers and veterans, the act covers the commissioned 

corps of the Public Health Service and other persons designated by the President in time of 

war or national emergency. These persons currently include about 8,000 intermittent 

disaster-response appointees in the National Disaster Medical System. However, since the 

primary focus of this report is veterans and active and reserve component military 

members, we use the term servicemembers throughout this report to include all those 

covered by the act.

3

 Pub. L. No. 93-508 (Dec. 3, 1974).

4

 The reserve components include the collective forces of the National Guard including the 

Army Guard and the Air Guard, as well as the forces of the Army Reserve, the Naval 

Reserve, the Marine Corps Reserve, the Air Force Reserve, and the Coast Guard Reserve.
Page 2 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

discharge, (2) giving proper notice prior to departure and after return from 

service, and (3) returning within 5 years of departure or immediately after 

the expiration of their initial enlistment contracts, whichever is longer.

Every individual in the country who serves in, has served in, or intends to 

serve in the uniformed services is potentially covered by USERRA. The act 

applies to a wide range of employers, including federal, state, and local 

governments as well as for-profit and not-for-profit private sector firms. 

Enforcement and implementation of USERRA is complex, with several 

federal agencies having specific and sometimes overlapping outreach, 

investigative, or enforcement roles. Along with the Department of Labor 

(DOL), the Department of Defense (DOD) is responsible for informing 

servicemembers and employers of their rights, benefits, and obligations 

under USERRA.5

 Much of DOD’s outreach is accomplished through its 

Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR) organization. The 

ESGR performs most of its work through volunteers and specially-trained 

impartial ombudsmen who act as informal mediators for USERRA issues 

that arise between servicemembers and their employers. DOL, through the 

efforts of its Veterans' Employment and Training Service (VETS), is the 

avenue through which servicemembers file formal USERRA-related 

complaints6

 against civilian employers. Representatives of VETS 

investigate USERRA complaints and try to resolve disputes, but if they are 

unable to resolve servicemember complaints, DOL informs the 

servicemembers that they may request to have their complaints referred to 

the Department of Justice (DOJ) or to the Office of Special Counsel (OSC). 

Unresolved complaints against private sector or state or local government 

employers are referred by DOL to DOJ to investigate, mediate, and litigate. 

Prior to February 8, 2005, unresolved complaints against federal executive 

agency employers were referred from DOL to OSC. Under a new 

demonstration project,7

 OSC now receives some USERRA complaints 

directly from certain servicemembers.

5

 The law also gives outreach responsibilities to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs but we did 

not review actions of the Department of Veterans Affairs in supporting USERRA because 

their role is more limited than that of the four federal agencies that you asked us to review. 

6

 Federal agencies use a variety of terms to describe servicemember allegation of USERRA 

violations, including “complaints,” “claims,” “cases,” “matters,” and “referrals.” For clarity 

and consistency throughout this report, we use the term complaint to describe these 

servicemember allegations. We refer to complaints to DOD as “informal complaints” and 

complaints to DOL, DOJ, and OSC as “formal complaints.”

7

 Veterans Benefits Improvement Act of 2004, Pub. L. No. 108-454, § 204 (2004).
Page 3 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

In light of the significant number of National Guard and Reserve members 

serving in the Global War on Terrorism who will be demobilized, returned 

to their civilian jobs, and possibly called back to duty, you requested that 

we review the efforts of certain federal agencies to support and enforce 

USERRA, specifically the activities of DOD, DOL, DOJ, and OSC. We agreed 

to address your immediate needs by first reviewing issues surrounding 

OSC’s enforcement of USERRA in the federal sector. On October 6, 2004, 

we issued U.S. Office of Special Counsel’s Role in Enforcing Law to 

Protect Reemployment Rights of Veterans and Reservists in Federal 

Employment, GAO-05-74R. This report responds to your broader request to 

review the actions of the four federal agencies involved in carrying out 

USERRA responsibilities. Our objectives were to determine the extent to 

which the agencies (1) have data that indicate the level of compliance with 

USERRA, (2) have efficiently and effectively conducted educational 

outreach, and (3) have efficiently and effectively addressed servicemember 

complaints. 

To address our first objective, we collected, reviewed, and analyzed data 

from a wide variety of sources, including the four federal agencies that 

support and enforce USERRA. We analyzed the annual numbers of 

complaints filed with DOL and those referred from DOL to DOJ and OSC 

from fiscal year 1997 through the third quarter of fiscal year 2005 to 

determine whether there were trends in the total referrals, or the referrals 

to either agency. We also reviewed the tabulations of responses from DOD’s 

Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) May 2004 projectable survey of 

reserve component members. We also conducted original analysis on the 

survey responses that addressed employment issues. In addition, we 

conducted a survey of the ESGR’s ombudsmen to obtain information about 

their backgrounds and training as well as the numbers of complaints they 

had handled and resolved. We also reviewed data related to the ESGR’s 

outreach and employer recognition programs. To address our second 

objective, we reviewed USERRA to determine agency roles and 

responsibilities in educating servicemembers and employers concerning 

USERRA, and we interviewed agency officials from DOD and DOL to 

determine how they carry out their USERRA educational outreach 

responsibilities. We also collected and analyzed data concerning DOD’s and 

DOL’s outreach activities. We interviewed DOJ and OSC officials to 

determine whether they were involved in any outreach activities. To 

address our third objective, we reviewed USERRA and the Veterans 

Benefits Improvement Act of 2004 to determine agency roles and 

responsibilities in processing USERRA complaints. We interviewed 

headquarters officials from the four agencies to determine how they pass 
Page 4 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

complaint information among various offices. Further, we interviewed the 

ESGR ombudsmen and customer service center representatives, state 

ombudsmen coordinators, DOL investigators, and officials at two of DOL’s 

regional offices and two of its solicitor’s offices. We reviewed DOL hard 

copy files in two regional offices and compared the data in those files to 

electronic data from DOL’s USERRA Information Management System. We 

also reviewed agency procedures for collecting and reporting information 

about the time required to address USERRA complaints. We determined 

that the agency data used in this report were sufficiently reliable for the 

purposes of this review, though the complaint data systems had some 

limitations that we discuss further in the report. We conducted our work 

from October 2004 through August 2005 in accordance with generally 

accepted government auditing standards. A more detailed description of 

our scope and methodology is provided in appendix I.

Results in Brief Whether overall USERRA compliance or employer support has increased, 

decreased, or remained steady is difficult to firmly establish; however, the 

federal agencies with responsibilities under USERRA have collected formal 

and informal complaint data and some employer support figures that 

provide limited insights into USERRA compliance or employer support. 

DOL’s formal complaint numbers show a possible relationship with the 

level of the use of National Guard and Reserve members and the number of 

complaints. For example, DOL numbers show that formal complaints rose 

in fiscal years 1991 and 1992 following the substantial increase in the use of 

the reserve component for Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. The 

formal complaint numbers rose again between fiscal years 2001 and 2004 

following the larger use of the reserve component for Operations Noble 

Eagle, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom. However, DOL’s formal 

complaints were generally lower in the years following USERRA’s 

passage—ranging from 895 to 1,465 in fiscal years 1995 through 2004—than 

in the years prior to its passage in 1994, when they ranged from 1,208 to 

2,537 between fiscal years 1989 through 1994. Because relatively few 

complaints reach DOJ and OSC by design, formal complaint data from 

those agencies may not fully provide an accurate picture of USERRA 

compliance or employer support. Between fiscal years 1995 and 2004, 

annual formal complaints remained below 59 at DOJ and below 21 at OSC. 

DOD data indicate that some employers are exceeding the requirements set 

forth in USERRA and providing their servicemember employees with 

“extra” benefits, but these data have limitations. DOD’s employer support 

organization, ESGR, has only 1 full year of informal complaint data, so it 

will be several years before the ESGR can identify any meaningful trends in 
Page 5 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

informal complaint numbers. Because informal complaint figures have not 

been captured on a consistent basis, agencies cannot know whether total 

complaints have been increasing, decreasing, or remaining steady. 

Furthermore, a 2004 DOD survey showed that at least 72 percent of 

Selected Reserve members with USERRA problems never sought 

assistance for those problems. This raises questions as to whether 

complaint numbers alone can fully explain USERRA compliance and 

employer support. These types of recently added employment questions on 

DOD’s periodic surveys, if continued, offer the potential to provide insight 

into compliance and employer support issues. 

DOD, DOL, and OSC have educated hundreds of thousands of 

servicemembers and employers about USERRA, but the efficiency and 

effectiveness of agency outreach efforts are hindered by a lack of employer 

information, an issue that we previously reported and recommended that 

DOD address. The agencies’ educational outreach efforts have ranged from 

placing USERRA information on agency Web sites and maintaining toll-free 

information lines, to conducting individual and group briefings. Despite 

these many general outreach efforts, agencies lack essential employer 

information needed to efficiently and effectively target outreach to 

employers who actually have servicemember employees. A March 21, 2003, 

memorandum from the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and 

Readiness required all members of the reserve components who are 

subject to being involuntarily called to active duty to provide DOD with 

their civilian employment information to assist the department in 

accomplishing its employer outreach. However, the services have not 

enforced this requirement and as of August 2005, about 40 percent of 

DOD’s reserve component members who were subject to being called to 

active duty had not complied with the requirement to enter their civilian 

employer information into DOD’s database. With limited employer data 

available to them, agencies have been restricted in their ability to 

efficiently and effectively target outreach to employers who actually have 

servicemember employees. Without complete information about the full 

expanse of servicemember employers, the federal agencies conducting 

outreach efforts have no assurance that they have informed all 

servicemember employers about USERRA rights and obligations. 

Agency abilities to efficiently and effectively address servicemember 

complaints, as intended by USERRA, are hampered by incompatible data 

systems, reliance on paper files, and a segmented process that lacks 

visibility. The speed with which servicemember USERRA complaints are 

addressed often hinges on efficient and effective information sharing 
Page 6 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

among the agencies involved in the complaint resolution process. However, 

the automated systems that DOD, DOL, DOJ, and OSC use to capture data 

about USERRA complaints are not compatible with each other. As a result, 

information collection efforts are sometimes duplicated, which slows 

complaint processing times. In addition, agencies are unable to efficiently 

process complaints because they are forced to create, maintain, copy, and 

mail paper files due to the incompatible data systems. Although DOL 

maintains electronic complaint files, it relies on its paper files when 

transferring complaints and it also focuses its complaint file reviews on its 

paper files. This slows the transfer of complaints and limits the ability of 

DOL managers to conduct prompt, effective oversight of complaint files. In 

addition, the ability of agencies to monitor the efficiency and effectiveness 

of the complaint process is hampered by a lack of visibility and by the 

segmentation of responsibility for addressing complaints among several 

different agencies. The segmented complaint resolution process means 

that the agency officials who handle the complaints at various stages of the 

process generally have limited or no visibility over the other parts of the 

process for which they are not responsible. This prevents any one agency 

from monitoring the length of time it takes for a servicemember’s 

complaint to be fully addressed, and leads agencies to focus on output 

figures for their portion of the complaint process rather than on overall 

federal responsiveness to complaints. As a result, agencies have developed 

goals that are oriented toward outputs of their agency’s portion of the 

process rather than toward results regarding an individual servicemember’s 

complaint. For example, agency goals address complaint processing times 

at different stages of the process, rather than the actual elapsed time 

servicemembers wait to have their complaints addressed. To highlight the 

difference between agency focuses on processing times and 

servicemember concerns with elapsed times, we reviewed complaints that 

had been closed and later reopened by VETS investigators. Specifically, we 

analyzed 52 complaints that were closed and reopened two or more times. 

Our analysis revealed substantial differences between the recorded 

processing times and the actual elapsed times for these complaints. The 

recorded processing times averaged 103 days. However, from the 

servicemembers’ perspectives, it took much longer because the 

servicemembers actually waited an average of 619 days from the time they 

first filed their initial formal complaints with DOL until the time the 

complaints were fully addressed by DOL, DOJ, or OSC. 

We are making four recommendations in this report. First, to better identify 

USERRA compliance and employer support trends, we recommend that 

DOD include USERRA questions in its periodic surveys of servicemembers; 
Page 7 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

second, to help educate employers about USERRA, we recommend that 

DOD take steps to enforce the requirement for servicemembers to report 

their civilian employment information, maintain the database on this 

civilian employment information, and share applicable employer 

information with DOL, OSC, and other federal agencies that educate 

employers about USERRA; third, to increase agency responsiveness to 

servicemember complaints, we recommend that DOD, DOL, DOJ, and OSC 

explore methods of electronically transferring information between 

agencies; fourth, to reduce the administrative burden on VETS 

investigators and improve the ability of VETS managers to provide 

effective, timely oversight of USERRA complaint processing, we 

recommend that the Secretary of Labor develop a plan to reduce agency 

reliance on paper files and fully adopt the agency’s automated complaint 

file system. Further, to encourage results rather than outputs, Congress 

should consider designating a single office to maintain visibility over the 

entire complaint resolution process. 

In written comments on a draft of this report, DOD, DOL, and OSC 

generally concurred with our findings and recommendations to their 

respective agencies. DOJ reviewed a draft of this report and had no 

comments. DOD deferred to DOL, DOJ, and OSC regarding our 

recommendation for the agencies to explore methods of electronically 

transferring information between agencies. DOL and OSC commented on 

our matter for congressional consideration that Congress should consider 

designating a single office to maintain visibility over the entire complaint 

resolution process. DOL noted that the mandated OSC demonstration 

project is ongoing, and therefore, it would be premature to make any 

suggestions or recommendations for congressional or legislative action 

until the pilot has been completed. DOL did note that its office is uniquely 

situated to provide an overview of the entire complaint resolution process. 

OSC supported our matter and stated that OSC has unparalleled experience 

and expertise in administering federal sector employment complaints and 

prosecuting meritorious workplace violations before the Merit Systems 

Protection Board. OSC believes that their office is in the best position to be 

the overseer. We believe that the Congress is the best qualified to determine 

the identity of the overseer and the timing of this matter for congressional 

consideration. 
Page 8 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

Background

USERRA Coverage and 

Protections

USERRA has extremely broad coverage, provides a wide range of 

protections, and applies over long time periods. The discrimination 

provisions of the law cover every individual who serves in, plans to serve 

in, or has served in the uniformed services of the United States. The law’s 

reemployment and benefit provisions are applicable to some active duty 

military personnel as well as to National Guard and Reserve members. 

USERRA applies to public and private employers in the United States, 

regardless of size, and includes federal, state, and local governments, as 

well as for-profit and not-for profit private sector firms. It also applies in 

overseas workplaces that are owned or controlled by U.S. employers. 

Generally, servicemembers are entitled to the reemployment rights and 

benefits provided by USERRA if they meet certain conditions. These 

include having held a civilian job8

 prior to call-up, serving fewer than 5 

years of cumulative military service with respect to that employer,9

providing their employer with advance notice of their service requirement 

when possible, leaving service under honorable conditions, and reporting 

back to work or applying for reemployment in a timely manner. Provided 

servicemembers meet their USERRA requirements, they are entitled to

• prompt reinstatement to the positions they would have held if they had 

never left their employment, or to positions of like seniority, status, and 

pay; 

• health coverage for a designated period of time while absent from their 

employers, and immediate reinstatement of health coverage upon 

return; 

• training, as needed, to requalify for their jobs; 

8

 Under USERRA, reemployment provisions do not apply to brief, nonrecurrent positions 

that cannot be expected to continue indefinitely or for a significant period of time.

9

 It is difficult to exceed the 5-year limit because many types of military duties do not count 

against this limit. For example, none of the time reserve component members spend on 

active duty supporting Operations Noble Eagle, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom 

counts against the 5-year limit.
Page 9 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

• periods of protection against discharge based on the length of service; 

and

• non-seniority benefits that are available to other employees who are on 

leaves of absence.

Figure 1 is a flowchart that shows servicemembers’ options for receiving 

federal assistance with their USERRA complaints. While the flowchart 

shows several different paths for resolving employment problems, the 

chart does not show all of the options available to servicemembers. Some 

servicemembers have used members of their military chain-of-command to 

help them resolve problems with their employers. In addition, the ESGR is 

available to provide information and informal mediation of USERRArelated employment problems. The DOL offers assistance similar to the 

ESGR in that it provides information to employers and employees, and 

works to informally resolve USERRA-related employment problems. The 

DOL also receives formal complaints from servicemembers under 

USERRA. Another option that is available to servicemembers at any time is 

to hire a private attorney and to file a complaint against their employer in 

court (for private employers and state and local governments) or before the 

Merit Systems Protection Board (for federal employers). However, a 

working group from the American Bar Association found that many private 

attorneys are reluctant to take USERRA complaints because cases are not 

likely to result in large judgments or settlements.
Page 10 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

Figure 1: Process to Resolve a USERRA Complaint Using Federal Assistance

Federal Agencies’ USERRA 

Roles and Responsibilities

The responsibility for enforcing and implementing USERRA is complex, 

involving several federal agencies. Under USERRA, specific outreach, 

investigative, and enforcement roles are assigned to DOD, DOL, DOJ, and 

OSC. 

File a complaint with DOL so that a

Veterans Employment and Training

Service (VETS) investigator or

regional solicitor can try to resolve

the situation through education

and formal mediation.

Use an ombudsman trained by the 

Employer Support of the Guard

and Reserve organization to help

resolve the problem through

education and informal mediation.

From February 8, 2005, to

September 30, 2005, OSC will

investigate, and when necessary

litigate, USERRA complaints from certain

servicemembers who work for federal

executive agencies. Complaints can

come directly from servicemembers

or be referred to OSC from DOL.

If a servicemember cannot resolve an alleged

USERRA violation directly with his or her employer,

he or she can seek assistance from:

When a servicemember requests

a referral, DOJ reviews the findings

of the DOL's VETS investigator

and regional solicitor and

then performs its own evaluation

of the merits of the complaint.

If DOJ determines the complaint

has merit, it represents the

servicemember against his or her

private employer or state or local

government employer in federal

district court.

DOD DOL OSC

When a servicemember requests

a referral, OSC reviews the findings

of the DOL's VETS investigator

and regional solicitor, then performs

its own evaluation of the merits of

the complaint, and obtains

additional information as necessary.

If OSC determines the complaint

has merit, it represents the

servicemember against his or her federal

executive agency employer before

the Merit Systems Protection Board.

OSC

(Demonstration Project)

DOJ

Source: GAO, Art Explosion.
Page 11 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

Department of Defense Most of the people entitled to USERRA rights and benefits earn their 

entitlement while serving in the military services. The Secretary of Defense 

shares responsibility with DOL for informing servicemembers and 

employers of their rights, benefits, and obligations under the act. The ESGR 

carries out this responsibility for DOD. The ESGR was established in 1972 

to manage activities that maintain and enhance employers’ support for the 

reserve components, and it has a goal to inform servicemembers and their 

employers of their respective USERRA rights and responsibilities. The 

Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness) 

develops the policies, plans, and programs that manage the readiness of 

both active and reserve forces, and within that office, the Assistant 

Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs oversees the activities of the 

ESGR.

The ESGR has a staff of about 55—18 civilians and 37 military personnel—

at its national headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.10 However, much of the 

ESGR’s work is done through its more than 4,000 volunteers who are 

organized into state committees.11 These volunteers help to educate both 

employers and servicemembers about USERRA, and a specially trained 

subgroup of about 800 volunteers serve as impartial ombudsmen who work 

to informally mediate USERRA issues that arise between servicemembers 

and their employers. While many volunteer ombudsmen are attorneys, 

human relations specialists, or have other backgrounds that assist them in 

their mediation work, all of the ESGR’s ombudsmen are required to attend 

a 3-day training course before they handle servicemember complaints. 

(App. II contains additional information about the backgrounds of these 

volunteer ombudsmen.) Most USERRA-related complaints come to the 

ESGR through its toll-free telephone number (1-800-336-4590), which is 

answered at the ESGR’s Customer Service Center in Millington, Tennessee. 

The customer service representatives in Tennessee screen calls, fill 

requests for information, and forward complaints that appear to have merit 

to volunteer ombudsmen, who are generally located geographically near 

the servicemembers. The complaints are often channeled through state 

10 The ESGR had some unfilled civilian positions during our review so its authorized staffing 

level was slightly higher.

11 While the ESGR refers to these organizations as “state” committees, there are committees 

in the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Europe, as well as in 

the 50 states.
Page 12 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

ombudsmen coordinators.12 The ESGR’s volunteer ombudsmen attempt to 

resolve pay-related USERRA complaints within 7 days and other USERRA 

complaints within 14 days. When ombudsmen cannot resolve 

servicemember complaints, they are to notify the servicemembers of the 

other options that are available to address complaints. The ombudsmen 

may then pass the complaints to the ESGR headquarters through their state 

ombudsman coordinators.

Department of Labor The Secretary of Labor has responsibility for providing assistance to 

servicemembers who claim USERRA rights and benefits.13 This 

responsibility is carried out primarily through the efforts of VETS. VETS is 

led by an assistant secretary who is supported by headquarters, regional, 

and state staff as well as local investigators. When a servicemember leaves 

active duty and a USERRA-related complaint develops against the 

servicemember’s civilian employer, the servicemember can file a formal 

complaint at www.vets1010.dol.gov, or can file a printed copy of the 

complaint form, such as the one included in appendix III, with the 

Secretary of Labor. The complaint is then assigned to one of VETS’s 

approximately 125 investigators, generally an investigator who is located 

close to the employer. These VETS investigators examine USERRA 

complaints and try to help the servicemembers and employers resolve their 

differences. The investigators also typically have a host of other 

responsibilities that support veterans’ programs but that are not directly 

related to USERRA. The law gives DOL subpoena power over records and 

individuals to aid in its investigations, but officials note that subpoenas are 

used infrequently because the threat alone is usually enough to gain 

cooperation. The statute also states that the Secretary of Labor may use the 

assistance of volunteers and may request assistance from other agencies 

engaged in similar or related activities. When DOL is unable to resolve 

servicemember complaints, DOL informs the servicemembers that they 

may request to have their complaints referred. A complaint is referred to 

DOJ if it involves state or local governments or private employers or to 

OSC if it involves a federal executive agency. Before complaints are sent to 

DOJ or OSC, they are reviewed by a VETS regional office, which reviews 

the memorandums of referral to ensure that the investigations are thorough 

12 Some states do not have state ombudsmen coordinators and in some states the complaints 

are channeled through full-time program support specialists rather than through volunteer 

state ombudsman coordinators.

13 DOL currently shares this responsibility with OSC under a mandated demonstration 

project discussed under the section on OSC.
Page 13 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

and that the documentation is accurate and sufficient. The referrals are 

also reviewed by a DOL regional solicitor’s office to assess the complaints’ 

legal basis. Both offices render opinions on the merits of the complaints. 

Even if both offices find that the complaints have no merit, DOL is required 

by the act to pass the complaints to DOJ or OSC if the servicemembers 

request referrals. 

Along with their investigation and mediation responsibilities, VETS 

investigators also conduct briefings to educate employers and 

servicemembers about USERRA requirements and responsibilities, and 

they field service-related employment and reemployment questions that are 

directed to their offices. These investigators are required to take three 

courses that train them in the basics of the USERRA law, advanced 

investigative techniques, and the differences between veterans’ preference 

issues and USERRA discrimination issues.

Under USERRA, the Secretary of Labor reports USERRA information to 

Congress on an annual basis,14 after consulting with the Attorney General 

and Special Counsel. The Secretary’s report includes information about the 

number of complaints reviewed by DOL during the fiscal year for which the 

report is filed along with the number of complaints referred to DOJ or OSC. 

The annual report should also address the nature and status of each 

complaint and should state “whether there are any apparent patterns of 

violation.” Finally, the report should include any recommendations for 

administrative or legislative action that the Secretary of Labor, the Attorney 

General, or Special Counsel consider necessary to effectively implement 

USERRA. USERRA also granted DOL authority to issue regulations that 

implement USERRA provisions for state and local government and private 

employers.15 In its most recent report to Congress,16 the department did not 

note any apparent patterns of violation. DOL did note that it had published 

draft regulations implementing USERRA for the first time on September 20, 

2004, and DOL has completed the evaluation of comments that were 

submitted in response to these draft regulations. DOL has submitted the 

14 The act specified that the report was to be transmitted by February 1, 1996, and annually 

thereafter through 2000. The act was amended in 2004 to require a report by February 1, 

2005, and annually thereafter.

15 The Office of Personnel Management, in consultation with DOL and DOD, was given the 

authority to issue similar regulations for federal executive agencies.

16 Fiscal year 2004.
Page 14 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

final regulations to OMB for formal review prior to publication in the 

Federal Register, and publication is expected in the near future.

Department of Justice The Attorney General is assigned enforcement responsibilities under 

USERRA, but DOJ is not authorized to receive USERRA complaints 

directly from servicemembers. It investigates, mediates, and litigates only 

private sector or state or local government complaints that it receives from 

DOL. The Civil Division in DOJ was responsible for handling USERRA 

complaints until September 2004, when DOJ transferred responsibility to 

its Civil Rights Division, which handles other types of employment 

discrimination complaints not related to military service. The Civil Division 

procedures called for the division to review the complaint and either 

(1) decline representation and return the complaint to DOL’s regional 

solicitor’s office because the complaint lacked merit or (2) forward the 

complaint to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for possible litigation. If the 

complaint was forwarded, the U.S. Attorney’s Office would assign the 

complaint to an assistant U.S. attorney who would review the information 

in the DOL referral,17 and interview the servicemember and potential 

witnesses. The assistant U.S. attorney then would make a determination 

on the merits of the complaint. If the assistant U.S. attorney found that the 

complaint was meritorious and the U.S. attorney agreed, the U.S. attorney’s 

Office would represent the servicemember. In these situations, the 

assistant U.S. attorney would contact the employer and try to resolve the 

matter without litigation. If that failed, the assistant U.S. attorney would file 

a complaint against the employer in federal district court. If the assistant 

U.S. attorney found that the complaint was not meritorious and the U.S. 

attorney agreed, the complaint would be referred back to DOL and the 

servicemember would have the option of seeking their own legal 

representation and filing a complaint against the employer in federal 

district court. A settlement could be negotiated at any stage of the process. 

In July 2005, the Civil Rights Division was still following these procedures 

pending sufficient experience with USERRA complaints to decide if new 

procedures are necessary.

17 Each DOL referral includes (1) the VETS investigative file, (2) a memorandum prepared 

by the VETS regional office that makes a recommendation concerning the merits of the 

complaint, and (3) a letter or memorandum from the regional solicitor that analyzes the 

merits of the complaint based on the facts and the law. The letter also provides a 

recommendation as to whether DOJ should represent the servicemember.
Page 15 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

DOJ’s Civil Rights Division attorneys are trained in handling discrimination 

complaints because they receive training on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act 

of 1964. In addition, according to DOJ officials, 37 attorneys in the 

Employment Litigation Section received training on USERRA in March 

2005 and also received a collection of reference documents relevant to 

USERRA. These attorneys are available to handle both civil rights and 

USERRA complaints. There are also 18 professional and 8 clerical staff 

who are trained on USERRA matters.

Office of Special Counsel Under USERRA, OSC is responsible for enforcing USERRA rights at federal 

executive agencies. Prior to February 8, 2005, OSC was not authorized to 

receive USERRA complaints directly from servicemembers and had to wait 

until DOL referred the complaints. However, under a demonstration 

project,18 OSC may now receive USERRA complaints against federal 

executive agencies directly from certain servicemembers.19 OSC recently 

established a six-person USERRA unit to investigate, mediate, and, as 

necessary, litigate USERRA complaints. Under the traditional procedures, 

when a servicemember employed by a federal executive agency requests to 

have his or her DOL complaint referred to OSC, DOL’s regional solicitor 

sends a referral to OSC. While OSC takes the referral information into 

account, OSC conducts its own review of the facts and the law and comes 

to its own conclusions on the merits of the complaint. If the complaint is 

received directly from the servicemember, OSC conducts the investigation 

without DOL input. In either case, if OSC is satisfied that the 

servicemember is entitled to corrective action, OSC begins negotiations 

with the servicemember’s federal employer. If an agreement cannot be 

reached, OSC may represent the servicemember before the Merit Systems 

Protection Board. If the Merit Systems Protection Board rules against the 

servicemember, OSC may appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit. In instances where OSC finds that complaints do 

not have merit, it informs the servicemembers of its decision not to 

represent them and informs servicemembers that they have the right to 

18 The demonstration project was authorized by the Veterans Benefits Improvement Act of 

2004, Pub. L. No. 108-454, § 204 (2004).

19 Under the demonstration project, complaints from servicemembers whose Social Security 

numbers end in odd numbers (1, 3, 5, 7, and 9) are referred to OSC and are no longer 

investigated by DOL. In addition, USERRA complaints that allege that a federal agency has 

engaged in prohibited personnel practices over which OSC has jurisdiction may be received 

directly by OSC regardless of the servicemembers’ Social Security number.
Page 16 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

take their claims to the Merit Systems Protection Board without OSC 

representation.

OSC’s USERRA unit consists of three investigators, two attorneys, and a 

unit chief, who is also an attorney. According to the unit chief, the members 

of the USERRA unit spend most of their time on USERRA complaints but 

they also handle some other prohibited personnel practice complaints. The 

specific USERRA training for the unit consists primarily of on-the-job and 

other informal training.

DOD’s Reserve Component 

Members’ Employers

To support the personnel information needs of DOD, DMDC, which reports 

to the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, surveys 

the attitudes and opinions of the DOD community on a wide range of 

personnel issues. In May 2004,20 DMDC surveyed a random sample of 

55,794 Selected Reserve21 members who had at least 6 months of service 

and who were below flag rank.22 Figures 2 and 3 show the projected results 

from survey questions that asked employed survey respondents about their 

employers. Figure 2 shows that about 10 percent of employed Selected 

Reserve members are self-employed or work in family businesses. 

According to the figure, about 29 percent of Selected Reserve members 

below flag rank work for federal, state, or local governments. However, the 

federal government percentage in this figure is understated because 

DMDC’s survey did not ask full-time National Guard and Selected Reserve 

members and military technicians—DOD civilian employees who must be 

members of a National Guard or Reserve unit as a condition of their 

employment—the survey question from which these data are drawn. 

20 The Web-based survey was actually conducted from April 12, 2004, and June 3, 2004, but 

DMDC refers to this as its May 2004 Status of Forces Survey of Reserve Component 

Members. See appendix I for information about the DMDC survey methodology.

21 The Selected Reserve includes approximately 840,000 National Guard or Reserve 

members who are paid for their participation in regularly scheduled training. Selected 

Reserve members can be involuntarily called to active duty under a number of different 

mobilization authorities.

22 Flag officers are officers who have achieved the rank of brigadier general or rear admiral 

(lower half) or above.
Page 17 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

Figure 2: Percentages of Selected Reserve Members Surveyed Who Work for 

Various Types of Employers 

Note: Percentages add to 101 percent due to rounding. The margins of error for each category are 

within +/- 2 percent. 

Figure 3 shows that an estimated 45 percent of employed Selected Reserve 

members below flag rank are employed by large employers who have 1,000 

or more total employees. The figure also shows that about 13 percent of 

employed Selected Reserve members work for small employers who have 9 

or fewer total employees. 

58%

4%

4%

6%

8%

10%

11%

Private companies or businesses

Family business or farm

Not-for-profit organizations

State government

Federal government

Local government

● Self employed

●

●

●

●

●

●

Source: GAO analysis of DMDC survey data.
Page 18 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

Figure 3: Percentages of Selected Reserve Members Who Work for Employers of 

Various Sizes 

Note: Employer size is based on total employees. The margins of error for each category are within +/- 

2 percent. 

GAO’s Prior Reports We have issued prior reports concerning USERRA and, more generally, 

about the need for results-oriented government. Our prior USERRA work 

has examined issues pertaining to employer support and enforcement of 

USERRA complaints at OSC. Our work on results-oriented government 

examined how the federal government could shift toward a more resultsoriented focus.

Employer Support and USERRA Since 2002, we have issued two reports related to employer support and 

USERRA. In our most recent report,23 we provided information on OSC’s 

role in enforcing USERRA. The report found that

• separate OSC and DOL determinations generally agreed on the merits of 

servicemember complaints,

45%

7%

13%

13%

22%

1,000 or more total employees

1 to 9 total employees

10 to 24 total employees

25 to 99 total employees

100 to 999 total employees

●

●

●

●

●

Source: GAO analysis of DMDC data.

23 GAO, U.S. Office of Special Counsel’s Role in Enforcing Law to Protect Reemployment 

Rights of Veterans and Reservists in Federal Employment, GAO-05-74R (Washington, D.C.: 

Oct. 6, 2004).
Page 19 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

• OSC took an average of about 145 days to process the 59 complaints it 

received between 1999 and 2003, and 

• OSC had made changes that were designed to expedite the handling of 

current USERRA complaints and any influx of new complaints.

In our earlier report,24 we addressed DOD’s management of relations 

between reservists and their employers. Our report stated the following.

• DOD had established a database to collect employer information from 

reserve component members on a voluntary basis in 2001. However, by 

May 14, 2002, only about 11,000 servicemembers had entered employer 

information into the database.

• DOD could not educate all employers concerning their USERRA rights 

and responsibilities because it viewed the Privacy Act as a constraint 

that prevented it from requiring reserve component members to provide 

civilian employer contact information.

• Ombudsmen were not always available to field servicemember phone 

calls.

• The ESGR did not have good data to determine the effectiveness of its 

outreach and mediation efforts.

We made a number of recommendations to address these and other 

findings in the report. In response to our recommendations, DOD 

reevaluated its interpretation of the Privacy Act and issued a requirement 

that all Ready Reserve25 members provide contact information for their 

civilian employers to their military departments. DOD also began funneling 

calls to its volunteer ombudsmen through a central customer service center 

24 GAO, Reserve Forces: DOD Actions Needed to Better Manage Relations between 

Reservists and Their Employers, GAO-02-608 (Washington, D.C.: June 13, 2002).

25 The Ready Reserve includes about 1.1 million members from three groups: the Selected 

Reserve, the Individual Ready Reserve, and the Inactive National Guard. The Selected 

Reserve members are the only Ready Reserve members who participate in regular training, 

but members of all three groups can be involuntarily called to active duty under the 

mobilization authority invoked by President Bush on September 14, 2001, as implemented in 

Exec. Order No. 13,223, 66 Fed. Reg. 48,201, reprinted as amended in 10 U.S.C. § 12302 note 

(2001).
Page 20 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

where information is logged into a database that is used to measure the 

ESGR’s outreach and mediation efforts.

Results-Oriented Government We have issued a number of reports that address the need for federal 

agencies to manage for results. In 2004, we issued a report26 that examined, 

among other things, the challenges agencies face in using performance 

information in management decisions and how the federal government can 

continue to shift toward a more results-oriented focus. The report noted 

that serious weaknesses persist, such as how agencies are coordinating 

with other entities to address common challenges and achieve common 

objectives. Moreover, mission fragmentation and overlap contribute to 

difficulties in addressing crosscutting issues, especially when those issues 

require a national focus. Other barriers to interagency cooperation include 

conflicting agency missions, jurisdiction issues, and incompatible 

procedures, data, and processes. These issues are particularly important in 

the context of USERRA implementation and enforcement. Since USERRA 

provisions are administered by four distinct agencies, coordination is 

imperative to successfully implement this law in the context of resultsoriented government.

Agencies’ Available 

Data Provides Limited 

Insight in Overall 

USERRA Compliance 

and Employer Support 

DOL, DOJ, OSC, and DOD have formal and informal USERRA complaint 

data, and some employer support figures. DOL’s formal complaint numbers 

show a possible relationship with the level of reserve component usage and 

the number of complaints. By design, DOJ and OSC formal complaint 

numbers are small, and may not provide a fully accurate picture of 

USERRA compliance or employer support. DOD data indicate that some 

employers are exceeding USERRA requirements; however, these data have 

limitations. DOD has only 1 full year of informal complaint data, so it will 

be several years before it has data that can identify any meaningful trends. 

Furthermore, data from a DOD survey indicate that most servicemembers 

do not seek assistance for their USERRA problems, which indicates that 

complaint data alone cannot fully explain USERRA compliance or 

employer support. 

26 GAO, Results-Oriented Government: GPRA Has Established a Solid Foundation for 

Achieving Greater Results, GAO-04-38 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 10, 2004).
Page 21 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

DOL’s Formal Complaint 

Numbers 

Formal complaint numbers from DOL show a possible relationship with 

reserve component usage and the passage of USERRA. Table 1 contains 

DOL’s formal complaint numbers and shows that DOL’s formal complaint 

numbers rose significantly in fiscal year 1991 and remained high in fiscal 

year 1992. This increase followed DOD’s activation27 of almost 270,000 

reserve component members for Operations Desert Shield and Desert 

Storm. The table also shows an increase in complaints between fiscal years 

2001 and 2004. This increase followed the activation of more than 300,000 

reserve component members for Operations Noble Eagle, Enduring 

Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom. DOL’s formal complaint data also show that 

complaints were generally lower in the years following USERRA’s passage 

in 1994 than in the years prior to its passage. Table 1 shows that between 

fiscal years 1989 and 1994, DOL’s annual formal complaint figures ranged 

from 1,208 to 2,537 but between fiscal years 1995 and 2004 the formal 

complaints were lower, ranging from 895 to 1,465. Finally, if complaints for 

the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2005 are consistent with the first three 

quarters, fiscal year 2005 complaint numbers could fall back to between the 

fiscal year 2002 and 2003 levels.

28 However, two recent changes could 

affect the number of complaints filed with DOL. First, a demonstration 

project now allows OSC to receive complaints directly from certain 

servicemembers instead of having the complaints referred to OSC by DOL. 

Second, DOL implemented an electronic (Form 1010) complaint form that 

allows servicemembers to file complaints directly from the DOL Web site 

rather than mailing or hand-delivering complaint forms to their local VETS 

offices.

27 Activation is the term DOD uses to describe the process by which reserve component 

personnel are called to active duty. This call may be voluntary or involuntary.

28 Between October 1, 2004, and June 30, 2005, DOL received 862 formal servicemember 

employment complaints. OSC also received 69 complaints that in previous years would 

have gone to DOL. If the complaint figures for the fourth quarter are consistent with the 

figures for the first three quarters, the final fiscal year 2005 complaint number would be 

1,241 and would fall between the fiscal year 2002 and 2003 complaint levels.
Page 22 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

Table 1: Formal Complaints Opened by the Department of Labor, Fiscal Years 1989 

through 2004

Source: GAO analysis of DOL data. 

Relatively few formal complaints reach DOJ and OSC each year since the 

formal process begins at DOL and complaints may be resolved there and 

not forwarded to DOJ or OSC. Thus, the number of formal complaint data 

from these two agencies is small and cannot be used to fully explain the 

relationship between complaints and USERRA compliance or employer 

support.29 Between fiscal years 1995 and 2004, formal complaints at DOJ 

ranged from 37 to 59 complaints each year. OSC’s annual formal complaint 

numbers ranged from 1 to 21 over the same period.30

Fiscal year Number of complaints opened

1989 1,370

1990 1,534

1991 2,537

1992 2,332

1993 1,442

1994 1,208

1995 1,387

1996 1,270

1997 1,245

1998 1,051

1999 1,029

2000 929

2001 895

2002 1,195

2003 1,315

2004 1,465

Total 22,204

Average 1,388

29 However, as noted earlier, the demonstration project will affect the number of complaints 

filed at OSC since the project allows OSC to receive complaints directly from certain 

servicemembers.

30 Because USERRA was passed in October 1994, DOJ and OSC would not have received 

USERRA cases from DOL from 1989 through 1994.
Page 23 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

DOD Data Show Some 

Employers Are Exceeding 

USERRA Requirements

Data from DMDC and the ESGR show that some employers are exceeding 

USERRA requirements. DMDC’s May 2004 survey found that many 

employers of Selected Reserve members had provided these members with 

extra benefits beyond those required by USERRA. Projections, which apply 

to more than 120,000 Selected Reserve members who were employed and 

had been activated in the 24 months prior to the survey,31 show that more 

than 26 percent of these members have employers who pay them salaries 

or differential pay32 for at least part of the time they are away from their 

civilian jobs performing military duties. Projections also show that more 

than 32 percent receive medical benefits that are not required by USERRA, 

and more than 30 percent receive other benefits above and beyond those 

required by USERRA. While these data indicate that some employers are 

exceeding USERRA, the DMDC data were collected only in 2004 and 

therefore cannot establish whether overall employer support is improving, 

steady, or declining. 

The ESGR data show increases in both employer awards and statements of 

support, but these increasing figures cover a relatively small group of 

employers. Servicemembers are increasingly nominating their employers 

for the ESGR’s various employer support awards. “Patriot Award” 

employers may be recognized for simply complying with USERRA. 

However, higher level awards typically require support above and beyond 

USERRA requirements. According to the ESGR officials, award 

nominations have increased over the years, and in fiscal year 2004 

servicemembers nominated their employers for more than 20,000 awards. 

The ESGR’s “Above and Beyond” award is one of the higher level awards. It 

is awarded annually by the ESGR’s state committees and recognizes 

employers who have exceeded USERRA requirements. Many employers 

have received this award over the years, and in fiscal year 2004 the ESGR’s 

state committees recognized 1,058 employers with “Above and Beyond” 

31 The projected population excluded reserve component members who were military 

technicians, on full-time active duty, on state active duty, or currently activated.

32 Differential pay is money that is paid to an employee to make up the difference in lost 

wages when an employee’s civilian salary is higher than his or her military salary.
Page 24 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

awards. 33 In addition to increases in awards, the ESGR figures show 

increases in the numbers of employers signing the ESGR “statements of 

support.” In signing statements of support, employers acknowledge that 

they will comply with USERRA. Between 2000 and 2002, 575 employers 

signed statements of support. In 2003, 1,228 employers signed the 

statements, and by July 26, 2005, the ESGR records showed that almost 

6,000 employers had signed statements of support. The ESGR continues to 

solicit statements of support, but is now focusing its outreach efforts on a 

“5-star” program, which encourages employers to move beyond simple 

USERRA compliance to increasingly higher levels of employer support. 

(See app. IV for additional details.) Despite encouraging increases in the 

ESGR’s employer support figures, the thousands of employers who have 

received awards or signed statements of support do not represent all the 

employers of the millions of servicemembers covered by USERRA.

Informal Complaint Data The absence of informal complaint data prevents linking the informal 

complaint numbers and the total number of complaints. It will be several 

years before the ESGR can identify any meaningful trends in informal 

complaint numbers because the ESGR has only 1 full year of informal 

complaint data in its central database. Until October 2003, the ESGR had a 

manual complaint tracking system that relied on monthly reports from its 

state committees to its national headquarters. Our 2002 report34 reviewed 

the ESGR’s effectiveness and found that the ESGR did not have an accurate 

count of the complaints handled by its ombudsmen. We found that 

33 Reserve Officers Association data also indicate that some of the nation’s largest employers 

are providing National Guard and Reserve members with increased support. Since 1990, the 

Reserve Officers Association has conducted annual surveys of Fortune 500 companies, 

which identified many corporate policies that exceed USERRA requirements. For example, 

the survey results published in 2003 showed that 132 companies paid full salaries, pay 

differentials, or a combination of salaries and differentials to their National Guard and 

Reserve employees who were called to emergency active duty. While the published Reserve 

Officers Association survey results show that many companies have increased their benefits 

to National Guard and Reserve employees over the years, some significant limitations 

prevent the data from being used to demonstrate trends in overall USERRA compliance or 

employer support. First, the policies of Fortune 500 companies do not necessarily reflect 

employers in general. Second, the companies responding to the survey differed from year to 

year. Third, survey response rates were generally low. For example, the 2003 response chart 

listed only 154 companies, the 2002 chart 132 companies, and the 2001 chart 119 companies. 

Finally, some survey responses on health plans did not always clearly distinguish between 

USERRA compliance and extra benefits.

34 GAO, Reserve Forces: DOD Actions Needed to Better Manage Relations between 

Reservists and Their Employers, GAO-02-608 (Washington, D.C.: June 13, 2002).
Page 25 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

reporting by ombudsmen had been sporadic and some states had gone an 

entire year without reporting any complaints at all. In 2003, the ESGR 

began funneling calls to its ombudsmen through a central call center where 

the complaint information is logged into a centralized database before 

assigning the complaint to an ombudsman. As a result of the changed 

procedures, the ESGR is now able to track the complaints handled by each 

of its nearly 800 ombudsmen. After they have been assigned a complaint, 

ombudsmen can access, review, update, and close assigned complaints, but 

they cannot create new complaint files in the database. Although the 

database now captures the informal complaints brought to the ESGR, at 

the time of our review the ESGR had only collected 1 full year of complaint 

data—fiscal year 2004. Because informal complaint figures have not been 

captured annually, agencies cannot know whether informal complaints 

have been increasing, decreasing, or remaining steady.

Available data suggest that the number of informal complaints handled by 

the ESGR is large enough that if annual data were available, the volume of 

informal complaints could overshadow that of DOL’s formal complaint 

data. We conducted a survey to collect information about the workload, 

backgrounds, and training of the ESGR’s ombudsmen because the ESGR 

lacked complete and accurate ombudsmen data. We surveyed all of the 831 

ombudsmen that the ESGR headquarters officials told us were available to 

handle complaints as of April 6, 2005. Of the 831 ombudsmen, 618 

responded to our survey but 52 said they were not available to handle 

complaints as of April 6, 2005. (See app. V for a complete list of our survey 

questions and results.) Our survey asked the ombudsmen how many 

complaints they had handled and resolved since becoming ombudsmen.35

Survey responses showed that the ombudsmen who were available to 

handle complaints on April 6, 2005, had handled 37,684 complaints. 

Although this figure does not cover a specific time period, it far exceeds the 

22,204 formal complaints handled by DOL between 1989 and 2004. DMDC 

survey data also suggest that informal complaint numbers could 

overshadow formal complaint numbers. Projections from DMDC’s May 

2004 survey show that between 54 and 78 percent of Selected Reserve 

members with USERRA problems seek assistance from the ESGR but only 

35 Because the ESGR has assembled a fluid group of ombudsmen made up primarily of 

volunteers, we recognized that many of the ombudsmen who were handling complaints in 

previous years were no longer ombudsmen when we did our survey. Therefore, we did not 

attempt to capture annual complaint data and asked for total workload figures to obtain a 

rough estimate of informal complaint numbers that we could compare to the formal 

complaint data provided by DOL. 
Page 26 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

between 16 and 36 percent seek assistance from VETS. Cross tabulations of 

survey responses further showed that servicemembers who had received 

USERRA briefings were more likely to seek assistance from the ESGR than 

those who had never been briefed. Conversely, the cross tabulations 

showed that servicemembers who had received USERRA briefings were 

less likely to turn to VETS for assistance than those who had never been 

briefed. If this pattern continues, as more servicemembers are briefed 

about their USERRA rights, servicemembers may file more informal 

complaints and fewer formal complaints.

Agency Complaint Numbers 

Do Not Appear to Capture 

Most USERRA Problems 

DMDC survey data indicate that formal and informal complaint numbers do 

not capture most USERRA problems experienced by servicemembers 

because most servicemembers do not seek assistance for their USERRA 

problems. In the spring of 2004, DMDC surveyed a random sample of 55,794 

Selected Reserve members and received responses from more than 19,000 

of these members. Survey respondents were asked about their civilian 

work experiences, reserve component programs and affiliations, and 

activations, and were asked a series of questions related to USERRA if they

• were not full-time National Guard or Reserve members, or military 

technicians; 

• were not on active duty when they completed the survey;

• were employed during the week prior to the time when they completed 

the survey, or during the week prior to their activation; and 

• had been activated during the 24 months prior to the time when they 

completed the survey.

The survey respondents who met these criteria were first asked if, despite 

their USERRA protection, they had experienced any of a series of USERRA 

problems. The survey projections show that between 4 and 8 percent of the 

119,761 Selected Reserve members who met the criteria above did not 

receive prompt reemployment upon their return from military service; 

between 9 and 14 percent experienced a loss of seniority, seniority-related 

pay, or seniority-related benefits; and between 5 and 9 percent did not 

receive immediate reinstatement of employer-provided health insurance. 

The survey yielded similar results for other USERRA problems listed in the 
Page 27 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

survey question.36 The survey respondents who experienced one or more 

problems were then asked if they had sought assistance for their problems. 

Survey results show that only between 18 and 28 percent of the 42,119 

Selected Reserve members who had USERRA problems sought assistance 

for the problems. Therefore, at least 72 percent of the Selected Reserve 

members who had experienced USERRA problems never filed a complaint, 

either formal or informal, to seek assistance in resolving their problems. In 

a separate question, all of the Selected Reserve members who had 

responded to the survey were asked if they had ever filed a formal USERRA 

complaint with DOL/VETS. The survey results show that less than 2 

percent of the more than 776,381 Selected Reserve members in the survey 

population have ever filed a formal USERRA complaint with DOL/VETS. 

The large percentage of servicemembers who fail to file either formal or 

informal complaints indicate that complaint data alone may be insufficient 

to fully explain USERRA compliance or employer support. Without 

periodic surveys of employment issues, such as DMDC’s May 2004 survey, 

DOD will continue to have difficulties determining trends in USERRA 

compliance and employer support.

Agencies Have 

Conducted 

Educational Outreach, 

but Efficiency and 

Effectiveness of 

Outreach Has Been 

Hindered by Lack of 

Employer Information

Agencies have taken actions to educate hundreds of thousands of 

servicemembers and employers about USERRA, but the efficiency and 

effectiveness of agency outreach actions are hindered by a lack of 

employer information. DOD, DOL, and OSC have conducted educational 

outreach using a variety of means, such as individual and group briefings, 

Web sites, and telephone information lines. However, agencies have been 

restricted in their ability to efficiently and effectively target educational 

outreach actions to employers who actually have servicemember 

employees because only limited employer information is available.

Agencies Have Used a 

Variety of Means to Conduct 

Outreach

DOD, DOL, and OSC have used a variety of means to educate 

servicemembers and employers about USERRA, such as individual and 

group briefings, Web sites, and telephone information lines. According to 

agency officials and employers, one of the primary reasons employers 

36 These other problems included issues related to pensions, upgrade and refresher training,

and health insurance (continuance during military service).
Page 28 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

violate USERRA is their lack of knowledge about the law’s requirements.37

USERRA assigns DOD and DOL responsibilities for informing 

servicemembers and their employers about their USERRA rights, benefits, 

and obligations, but it gives the agencies flexibility to determine the 

appropriate means for conducting this outreach.38 DOD and DOL have used 

this flexibility to conduct educational outreach through a wide variety of 

means. Group briefings are one of the primary means these agencies use to 

educate employers and servicemembers about the law. However, they also 

have USERRA information on their agency Web sites, and headquarters and 

field representatives respond to individual requests for information 

through toll-free phone lines.39 Between September 11, 2001, and June 30, 

2005, VETS staff responded to more than 34,000 requests for USERRA 

information40 and conducted briefings for more than 247,000 people. DOL 

also made a USERRA poster available for employers to post in their 

workplaces as a means of complying with the requirements set forth in the 

Veterans Benefits Improvement Act, which was enacted in December 2004. 

The poster is on the VETS Web site and is included as appendix VI of this 

report. The poster does not include any information about OSC’s role in 

providing assistance on USERRA problems, even though OSC told us that 

they have requested that DOL include information about OSC’s role. DOD 

also conducts a wide range of outreach actions. Some activities, such as the 

ESGR statements of support and awards, were discussed earlier in this 

report, and appendix IV contains information on many of DOD’s other 

outreach programs. Although not required by USERRA, OSC also has taken 

actions to educate federal employers about their responsibilities under the 

law. OSC officials have conducted USERRA briefings for executive branch 

37 Data suggest that employer violations of USERRA could be tied not only to employer 

knowledge of the law but also to servicemember understanding of the law. The May 2004 

DMDC survey showed that the incidence of USERRA problems was lower among survey 

respondents who had received USERRA briefings than among respondents who had not 

received briefings. However, the cross tabulation of the results from the USERRA briefing 

question and the USERRA problem question yielded small subgroups and consequently 

cannot clearly establish a relationship between briefings and problems for the entire 

Selected Reserve population.

38 38 U.S.C.§ 4333. The Secretary of Veterans Affairs shares these outreach responsibilities 

with the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Labor.

39 The ESGR’s Web site is www.esgr.mil, and its toll-free telephone number is 800-336-4590. 

The VETS Web site is www.dol.gov/vets and its toll-free telephone number is 866-487-2365.

40 About 50 percent of the requests came from active military or National Guard or Reserve 

members, about 29 percent from employers, and the remainder from the media and other 

groups and individuals.
Page 29 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

employees and managers and other groups. For example, they have 

conducted briefings at recent federal dispute resolution conferences and 

for the District of Columbia Bar Association. OSC’s Web site also contains 

information about USERRA, contact information for complaints or 

questions, and information about OSC’s ongoing demonstration project.41

Efficiency and Effectiveness 

of Employer Outreach 

Efforts Are Hindered by 

Lack of Employer 

Information

Agencies have been restricted in their ability to efficiently and effectively 

target educational outreach actions to employers who actually have 

servicemember employees, because only limited employer information is 

available. To accomplish its employer outreach requirements, DOD 

established a database and a policy requiring collection of these data. 

However, information collection efforts are incomplete, which impedes 

agencies’ ability to communicate with employers who have servicemember 

employees.

DOD Has a Policy and Means for 

Collecting Essential Employer 

Information

In 2001, DOD established a database to voluntarily collect employer 

information from reserve component members, but few servicemembers 

submitted the data, and following a recommendation in our 2002 report,42

DOD made the submission of employer information mandatory. On March 

21, 2003, the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness 

signed a memorandum mandating the collection of employer information. 

The memorandum directed the military departments to immediately 

implement a civilian employment information program for National Guard 

and Reserve members subject to involuntary recall to active duty. This 

memorandum required that all members of the reserve components 

provide employment-related information upon assignment to the Ready 

Reserve43 and at other times determined by their respective military 

41 OSC’s Web site is www.osc.gov, and the telephone number for its USERRA unit is 202-254-

3620.

42 GAO, Reserve Forces: DOD Actions Needed to Better Manage Relations between 

Reservists and Their Employers, GAO-02-608 (Washington, D.C.: June 13, 2002).

43 DOD has more than a million Ready Reserve members, who are divided into three groups. 

The largest group is the Selected Reserve, which contains more than 800,000 members who 

train regularly for pay. The second group, the Individual Ready Reserve, contains more than 

300,000 members. These members were previously trained during periods of active duty 

service, but do not participate in any regularly scheduled training and are not paid as 

members of the Individual Ready Reserve. The last and smallest group is the Inactive 

National Guard, which contains fewer than 2,000 members who are temporarily unable to 

participate in training but who wish to remain attached to their National Guard units.
Page 30 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

departments. According to the Under Secretary’s memorandum, one of the 

purposes for collecting the employer information is to “utilize (the 

information) on a recurring basis to assist the Department in 

accomplishing its employer outreach purposes under 38 U.S.C. 4333.” The 

information required by the memorandum included employment status, 

employer’s name, employer’s complete mailing address, member’s civilian 

job title, and the servicemember’s length of experience in their civilian 

occupation. The memorandum indicated members who refuse to provide 

information or who provide false information may be subject to 

administrative action or punishment for dereliction of duty under the 

Uniform Code of Military Justice. 

The memorandum assigned unit commanders the responsibility for 

ensuring that their Selected Reserve members were familiar with the 

memorandum’s requirements and provided adequate time to comply with 

the requirements during training periods. The military departments were 

assigned responsibility for ensuring the compliance of other Ready Reserve 

members. According to DOD officials, reserve component members with a 

computer and Internet access can enter their employer information into 

DOD’s database from home or they can enter the information at their units 

during normal training periods. The employer database is linked to the 

defense enrollment eligibility reporting system. Therefore, if reserve 

component members check on their dependents’ eligibility for health care 

or enter their dependents into the system, they can also take the 

opportunity to enter or update their employer information. 

Collection of Employer 

Information Is Improving, but 

Incomplete Data Impede the 

Efficiency and Effectiveness of 

Agencies’ Outreach 

The collection of employer information is improving but, more than 2 years 

after the Under Secretary called for the immediate implementation of a 

civilian employment information program, collection efforts are still 

incomplete, which impedes the efficiency and effectiveness of agencies’ 

outreach efforts. As of August 2005, about 40 percent of DOD’s Ready 

Reserve members had not entered their civilian employer information into 

DOD’s database. The percentage of Selected Reserve members who have 

complied with the requirement to enter their employment information into 

the database has risen substantially over the past year—from 13 percent in 

October 2004, to 58 percent in April 2005, to 73 percent in August 2005, 

when we ended our review. Figure 4 shows the compliance rates for 

Selected Reserve members in each of the seven reserve components, as 

well as the compliance rates for Individual Ready Reserve and Inactive 

National Guard members in the six components where they serve. (The Air 

National Guard does not have any Inactive National Guard or Individual 

Ready Reserve members.) Figure 4 illustrates that compliance rates vary by 
Page 31 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

reserve component, supporting the assertion of DOD officials that 

compliance rates are tied to command attention and enforcement. 

Compliance rates are substantially lower for Inactive National Guard and 

Individual Ready Reserve members than they are for Selected Reserve 

members, further reflecting the lack of enforcement of the policy. 

Responsible DOD officials said that as far as they knew, the military 

departments had not enforced this policy by subjecting any 

servicemembers to punishment or administrative action for failing to 

comply with the policy.

Figure 4: Percentages of Ready Reserve Members Who Had Supplied Civilian Employment Information as of August 10, 2005

Since Individual Ready Reserve members do not participate in any regular 

training and have been recalled to active duty less frequently than Selected 

Reserve members, the employers of Individual Ready Reserve members 

may be unaware that their employees have a military obligation and that 

they, as employers of servicemembers, have USERRA obligations. 

0

20

40

60

80

100

Marine Corps Army Reserve

Reserve

Coast Guard

Reserve

Air Force

Reserve

Army National Naval Reserve

Guard

Air National

Guard

Compliance

Reserve component

Individual Ready Reserve or Inactive National Guard

Selected Reserve

Source: GAO based on Office of the Assistant Secretary of

Defense for Reserve Affairs data.

79%

73%

46%

82% 83%

67%

16%

66% 66%

10%

16%

21%

37%
Page 32 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

Therefore, outreach to these employers may be even more important than 

outreach to employers of Selected Reserve members. Between September 

11, 2001, and June 30, 2005, more than 9,500 Individual Ready Reserve 

members had been recalled to active duty, with more than 4,500 coming 

from the Army Reserve and more than 4,200 from the Marine Corps 

Reserve.44 Despite these activations, figure 4 shows that only 10 percent of 

the Individual Ready Reserve members in the Army Reserve and only 16 

percent in the Marine Corps Reserve had entered their employer 

information into DOD’s database. 

In the absence of full compliance with the requirement for servicemembers 

to provide civilian employer information, agencies’ abilities to conduct 

outreach to educate employers about USERRA has been hindered. 

Agencies have conducted many general outreach efforts but have been 

restricted in their ability to efficiently and effectively target outreach to 

employers who actually have servicemember employees. With limited 

employer data available, DOD is unable to share this information with the 

other federal agencies that perform employer outreach so that agencies can 

coordinate their activities to reach all the employers of servicemembers 

who are covered by USERRA. Without complete information about the full 

expanse of servicemember employers, the federal agencies conducting 

outreach efforts have no assurance that they have informed all 

servicemember employers about USERRA rights, benefits, and obligations. 

Therefore, agency outreach efforts are likely to be reaching some 

employers who do not have any servicemember employees while 

neglecting other employers who do have servicemember employees. 

44 During the same period, 21 Inactive National Guard members were called to active duty.
Page 33 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

Agencies’ Ability to 

Efficiently and 

Effectively Address 

Complaints Hampered 

by Incompatible Data 

Systems, Reliance on 

Paper Files, and Lack 

of Visibility

A segmented process with incompatible data systems hampers agencies’ 

abilities to efficiently and effectively address servicemembers’ complaints 

and report results as intended by USERRA. The speed with which 

servicemembers’ USERRA complaints are addressed often hinges on 

efficient and effective information sharing among the agencies involved in 

the complaint resolution process; however, DOD, DOL, DOJ, and OSC use 

incompatible data systems to track USERRA complaints. This impedes 

information sharing and can lead to duplicative efforts that slow processing 

times. In addition, the use of paper files to transfer complaints among 

offices limits the agencies’ abilities to efficiently process complaints and 

increases complaint processing times. Futhermore, agencies’ abilities to 

monitor the extent to which complaints are efficiently and effectively 

addressed are hampered by a lack of visibility and by the segmentation of 

responsibilities for addressing complaints among several different 

agencies.

Incompatible Data Systems 

Hamper Ability to Address 

Complaints

The ability of DOD, DOL, DOJ, and OSC to effectively and efficiently 

address USERRA complaints has been hampered by the use of five 

different and incompatible automated systems to capture data about 

USERRA complaints. DOD, OSC, and DOJ45 each operate one system and 

DOL operates two systems, one for its VETS offices and another for its 

solicitors’ offices. Because the systems were created for different 

purposes, they do not capture the same data. The ESGR and VETS systems 

are complaint file systems that can contain extensive ombudsmen or 

investigator notes and details about individual complaints. The other three 

systems are used primarily for tracking purposes and do not capture 

extensive details about individual cases. Even when data fields in the 

different systems bear similar names, the information contained in the 

fields may not match. For example, in DOJ’s Interactive Case Management 

System, the date closed means that final action has taken place on the 

complaint. In contrast, in the VETS system, the closed date can mean 

several different things, such as the date the investigator resolved the 

complaint, the date the servicemember requested to have his or her 

complaint referred to DOJ or OSC, or the date the complaint was 

withdrawn by the servicemember. During the course of our review, we 

attempted to compare complaint data from the VETS system to data from 

45 DOJ’s Civil and Civil Rights Divisions have separate systems but the divisions’ USERRA 

responsibilities cover different time periods.
Page 34 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

the DOL solicitor, DOJ, and OSC systems. Because the systems captured 

data differently, we were not able to perfectly match the data during any of 

these attempts. In some cases we were able to match dates from the 

different systems, in other cases dates differed, and in still other cases we 

could not even identify the matching complaint files. Because DOL could 

not identify complaints that had been handled by the ESGR, we did not 

attempt to match DOL and the ESGR files.46

The inability of ombudsmen, investigators, and other officials to share 

complaint information by electronically transferring information among 

their systems or accessing each other’s systems may result in duplicate 

efforts to collect identical information that is needed to investigate and 

process USERRA complaints. For example, during informal mediation 

efforts, DOD’s approximately 800 ombudsmen may gather pertinent 

information and documentation that concerns servicemember eligibility for 

USERRA coverage; civilian supervisors; employer policies and 

organizational structures, including information about who makes 

employment decisions; circumstances surrounding the alleged USERRA 

violations; and witness statements. However, if ombudsmen efforts do not 

resolve the complaints and the servicemembers elect to file formal DOL 

complaints, the ESGR officials cannot transfer information from their 

database directly to DOL’s database, and DOL investigators do not have 

access to the ESGR’s database. As a result of this inability to share 

information, VETS investigators sometimes start their investigations with 

nothing more than the basic information included on the formal complaint 

form, and they later contact servicemembers and employer representatives 

to request the exact same information that was previously provided to the 

ESGR ombudsmen. These duplicative efforts slow complaint processing 

times, increase the times that servicemembers must wait to have their 

complaints fully addressed, and may frustrate servicemembers or 

employers. Likewise, DOL cannot transfer information from the VETS 

database to DOJ, OSC, or even to DOL’s solicitors’ offices, and people in 

these other offices do not have access to the VETS database. As a result, 

officials in these other offices may contact the servicemember or employer 

and again request information that had been previously provided to the 

ESGR or VETS.

46 Shortly before we ended our review, VETS began identifying the complaints that had gone 

to the ESGR prior to coming to DOL.
Page 35 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

Reliance on Paper Files 

Limits Ability to Efficiently 

Address and Oversee 

Complaints

As complaints are referred from one office to another, agencies are unable 

to efficiently process complaints because they are forced to create, 

maintain, copy, and mail paper files due to the incompatible data systems. 

For example, when a servicemember asks a VETS investigator to refer his 

or her complaint to DOJ or OSC, the investigator cannot electronically 

transfer the complaint information to the requisite offices. Instead, the 

investigator prepares and mails a paper complaint file to a VETS regional 

office where the file is reviewed, added to, and then mailed or hand carried 

to a DOL solicitor’s office. The solicitor’s office then reviews the file, adds a 

legal opinion concerning the merits of the complaint, and mails the file to 

OSC or DOJ. Because VETS investigators cannot electronically transfer 

information when they refer complaints, they face the administrative 

burden of maintaining both paper and electronic complaint files that 

contain much of the same information. 

This reliance on paper files results in increased complaint processing times 

and can limit managers’ abilities to provide effective and timely oversight. 

When complaint numbers are large, managers can exercise more efficient 

and effective oversight of electronic complaint files that are stored in 

automated systems with query capabilities than of geographically 

dispersed paper complaint files. Of the four federal agencies we reviewed, 

only the agencies that deal with large numbers of complaint files—DOD 

and DOL—had electronic complaint files that were stored in automated 

systems with query capabilities that facilitate oversight. However, DOL still 

considers its paper complaint files its official records, and the VETS 

operations manual outlines management oversight and internal control 

procedures that focus on reviews of the investigators’ paper files. Because 

the paper files are located in VETS offices in all 50 states, the District of 

Columbia, and Puerto Rico, paper file reviews take longer than electronic 

file reviews, and managers can lose visibility of paper case files. For 

example, during our visits to two regional VETS offices, we judgmentally 

selected 64 complaints and asked to review the paper complaint files to 

compare the data in those files to information in the VETS automated 

system. Officials located 6047 of the 64 paper files we requested, but 8 

weeks after our visit to one office, officials were still unable to locate the 

47 We actually reviewed 59 paper complaint files because one of the files we were given to 

review contained the wrong complaint number. Officials later located the correct file but we 

did not review it.
Page 36 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

other 4 files and concluded that the files had been misplaced or lost.48 In 

addition, our review of data from the VETS automated database identified a 

number of issues that warranted management attention. However, the 

VETS reviews of sample paper files had not addressed the full scope of 

these problems in a timely manner. For example, we were able to quickly 

identify more than 430 complaints that had been closed and then reopened, 

and we were also able to identify that a large portion of these reopened 

cases occurred in a single region, many with a single investigator.49 If VETS 

oversight procedures had focused on electronic file review rather than 

paper file review, corrective action could have been taken sooner on cases 

that were improperly closed.50

Segmented Responsibilities 

and Lack of Visibility 

Impedes Ability to Monitor 

and Report the Extent to 

Which Complaints Are 

Efficiently and Effectively 

Addressed

The ability of agencies to monitor the efficiency and effectiveness of the 

complaint process is hampered by a lack of visibility and by the 

segmentation of responsibility for addressing complaints among several 

different agencies. From the time informal complaints are filed with the 

ESGR through the final resolution of formal complaints at DOL, DOJ, or 

OSC, no one has visibility over the entire process. The segmented 

complaint resolution process means that the agency officials who handle 

the complaint at various stages of the process generally have limited or no 

visibility over the other parts of the process for which they are not 

responsible. This prevents any one agency from monitoring the length of 

time it takes for a servicemember’s complaint to be fully addressed, and 

leads agencies to focus on output figures for their portion of the complaint 

process rather than on overall federal responsiveness to complaints. As a 

result, agencies have developed goals that are oriented toward outputs of 

their agency’s portion of the process rather than toward results for an 

48 Agency officials told us that they had “reconstructed” the four missing files, but we did not 

review the reconstructed files.

49 Officials from this region claimed that they were aware of problems with reopened cases 

in their region and had addressed the problem. However, one case was closed and reopened 

six times before the problem was addressed. We did not review all of the more than 430 

reopened cases to verify whether or not the cases had been reopened properly or whether 

problems with reopened cases had been corrected in this region or in DOL’s other regions.

50 During our review of 59 paper complaint files, we reviewed 28 reopened complaints. We 

found that some of these complaints were closed and then reopened for valid reasons. 

However, other case closures simply stopped the processing time clock without addressing 

the servicemembers’ complaints. For example, one case was closed while the investigator 

was waiting to receive information from an employer. Another was closed to allow the 

investigator time to consult with the solicitor’s office.
Page 37 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

individual servicemember’s complaint. For example, agency goals address 

complaint processing times at different stages of the process,51 but 

agencies do not measure a result of primary concern to servicemembers—

the elapsed time between the bringing of a complaint to a federal agency 

and the complaint’s final resolution. Due to the incompatibility of agency 

systems and the lack of visibility across agencies, we were not able to track 

the entire elapsed time that servicemembers wait to have their complaints 

fully addressed. However, the VETS database attempts to capture 

processing times from the time a servicemember files a formal complaint 

until the time the complaint is finally resolved by VETS, DOL’s solicitor’s 

office, DOJ, or OSC.52 To highlight the difference between agency focuses 

on processing times and servicemember concerns with elapsed times, we 

reviewed complaints that had been closed and later reopened by VETS 

investigators.53 Between October 1, 1996, and June 30, 2005, 

servicemembers filed 10,061 formal complaints with DOL. More than 430 of 

these complaints were closed and later reopened, and 52 of the 430 

complaints were closed and reopened two or more times. For example, one 

investigator opened a complaint file on September 30, 2001, and then 

closed and reopened the complaint six times before finally referring the 

complaint to the VETS regional office on September 9, 2002. We analyzed 

the processing times and elapsed times for the 52 complaints that had been 

closed and reopened two or more times and found substantial differences 

between the figures. DOL’s system assigned separate complaint numbers to 

the 52 complaints each time the complaint was opened or reopened. 54 As a 

51 For example, one VETS goal is to close 85 percent of USERRA complaints within 90 days 

of the date the complaints were filed. However, a complaint may still need to go to DOJ or 

OSC for final resolution after it has been closed by the VETS investigator. In addition, DOJ’s 

Assistant Attorney General has directed that, where the Civil Rights Division believes 

representation is warranted, a representation recommendation should be made within 90 

days of receipt of the meritorious referral from DOL. Furthermore, the 90 days does not 

count any time that the ESGR spent trying to resolve the complaint.

52 As noted earlier, the dates in the VETS system do not always match the dates in the other 

systems.

53 VETS procedures specify that if the servicemember provides the investigator with 

additional evidence for the initial complaint filed, the existing complaint is re-opened and 

the information is added. However, if the servicemember lodges a new issue, a new 

complaint is opened.

54 Reopened complaints are assigned a complaint number, which begins the same as the 

original complaint number but which contains a “R” on the end of the number to indicate 

that it is a reopened complaint. Complaints that are reopened twice contain a “R2” at the 

end, those that are reopened three times a “R3,” etc.
Page 38 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

result, the system recorded the average processing time as 103 days. 

However, from the servicemembers’ perspectives, it took much longer for 

DOL, DOJ, and OSC to address their complaints.55 The servicemembers 

who filed the 52 complaints actually waited an average of 619 days from the 

time they first filed their initial formal complaints with DOL until the time 

the complaints were fully addressed by DOL, DOJ, or OSC.56 Because 

agency officials do not have visibility over the entire complaint resolution 

process and no one has information about the time it takes federal agencies 

to fully address servicemember complaints, the Secretary of Labor, 

Attorney General, and Special Counsel cannot evaluate the full range of 

administrative or legislative actions that may be necessary to effectively 

implement USERRA, and the Secretary of Labor’s annual report to 

Congress cannot be as accurate and complete as required.57

Conclusions Informal and formal complaint data from the agencies responsible for 

enforcing and implementing USERRA do not support the analysis needed 

to determine if employer compliance with USERRA and support for the 

act’s purpose has improved since passage of the act in 1994. The 

responsible agencies collect data and some insight may be gained from 

DOL’s formal complaint numbers. However, the numbers from DOJ and 

OSC are small and cannot be used to fully explain the relationship between 

complaints and USERRA compliance or employer support, and DOD’s data 

collection effort is so new that meaningful trends cannot yet be identified 

using informal complaint data. Complaint data alone may not accurately 

reflect the problems servicemembers are experiencing transitioning 

between their federal service and civilian employment. The vast majority 

of surveyed National Guard and Reserve members who experienced 

USERRA-related problems did not seek assistance for their problems. The 

survey data do not lend themselves to the analysis needed to determine if 

55 We collected information on the 52 complaints in July 2005. At that time, DOL had closed 

24 complaints, DOJ and OSC had closed 20 complaints, 4 complaints were still open at DOL, 

and 4 complaints were open at DOJ or OSC.

56 Because dates in the VETS system do not always match the dates in other systems, the 

calculated processing and elapsed times may not be accurate for complaints that have been 

referred from the VETS investigator to DOJ or OSC. Therefore, the figures presented here 

should not be considered precise reflections of processing times or elapsed times. The 

figures are presented because they are the best data available to illustrate the difference 

between the agencies’ focuses on outputs and the servicemembers’ concern with results.

57 38 U.S.C. § 4332 (2005).
Page 39 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

the problems were resolved to the servicemember’s satisfaction. DOD 

periodically conducts these surveys to identify issues that need to be 

addressed or monitored. However, questions on the surveys vary from year 

to year and have not always included those pertaining to USERRA 

compliance and employer support. Periodic, projectable surveys of the 

servicemembers who are covered by USERRA could provide DOD, DOL, 

DOJ, and OSC with a means to determine whether or not USERRA 

compliance and employer support is improving and thus, USERRA’s 

purpose—to minimize employment disadvantages that can result from 

service in the uniformed service—is being achieved. 

Employer violation of USERRA is often attributed to employers’ lack of 

knowledge about the law’s requirements. Having a means to identify the 

civilian employers of servicemembers who are covered by USERRA is 

essential to effectively and efficiently target the agencies’ educational 

outreach efforts. DOD has made progress establishing a civilian employer 

database. However, DOD has not taken steps to enforce its requirement for 

National Guard and Reserve members to enter and maintain their civilian 

employer data. Until complete employer information is obtained, agency 

outreach efforts are likely to be reaching some employers who do not have 

any servicemember employees, while neglecting other employers who do 

have servicemember employees.

Currently, DOD’s ESGR, DOL’s VETS and solicitors’ offices, DOJ, and OSC 

all operate their own automated systems for tracking USERRA complaints. 

Officials from each agency have access to their own system but they cannot 

access complaint information in the automated systems of the other 

agencies, and complaint data cannot be electronically transferred from one 

system to another. As a result, officials from different agencies sometimes 

spend time collecting information that has already been provided to 

another agency. This slows the complaint resolution process. In addition, 

because data systems are incompatible, formal referrals from VETS 

investigators to DOJ or OSC must be accompanied by a paper file, which is 

first routed through a VETS regional office and a DOL solicitor’s office. The 

creation, maintenance, and transfer of these paper files add to complaint 

processing times and the time servicemembers wait to have their 

complaints addressed. As long as agency systems remain segmented and 

incompatible and referral information is passed through the mail, 

complaints will continue to be processed inefficiently.

VETS investigators are geographically dispersed across the country and 

they maintain both paper and electronic USERRA complaint files. 
Page 40 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

Managers with the requisite level of authority can have virtually instant 

access to every electronic complaint file from every investigator across the 

country. However, DOL considers its paper complaint files its official 

records. As a result, the VETS operating procedures and internal controls 

are geared toward the review of the paper complaint files. These paper 

reviews are time consuming. In addition, paper files can be misplaced or 

lost when they are moved from office to office. Until VETS switches to 

electronic files, investigators will continue the inefficient practice of 

maintaining duplicate records and managers will be limited in their ability 

to provide timely oversight and effective corrective actions for any 

problems that arise. 

The responsibility for enforcing and implementing USERRA is complex, 

involving several federal agencies. A single complaint can start at DOD and 

flow through three different DOL offices before finally being resolved at 

DOJ or OSC. The segmented complaint resolution process means that the 

agency officials who handle the complaint at various stages of the process 

generally have limited or no visibility over the other parts of the process for 

which they are not responsible. As a result, agency officials have not 

addressed complaint processing issues that cut across federal agencies or 

set outcome–oriented goals. Instead, agencies have focused their goals on 

outputs from their particular portions of the complaint process rather than 

focusing on overall federal responsiveness to USERRA complaints. 

Meanwhile, the servicemember knows how much time is passing since the 

initial complaint was filed. Under USERRA, specific outreach, 

investigative, and enforcement roles are assigned to DOD, DOL, DOJ, and 

OSC. However, no agency has visibility over the entire complaint process. 

Therefore, it is difficult for the responsible agencies to achieve their 

common goal–to minimize the employment disadvantages that can result 

from service in the uniformed service, and the time servicemembers wait to 

have their complaints fully addressed–which is of great importance to 

servicemembers. Furthermore, the Secretary of Labor’s annual reports will 

not provide Congress with a complete and accurate picture of USERRA 

violation patterns or the legislative actions that may be necessary to 

effectively implement the act.

Recommendations for 

Executive Action

To gauge the effectiveness of federal actions to support USERRA by 

identifying trends in USERRA compliance and employer support, we 

recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Under Secretary of 

Defense for Personnel and Readiness to include questions in DOD’s 

periodic Status of Forces Surveys to determine 
Page 41 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

• the extent to which servicemembers experience USERRA-related 

problems;

• if they experience these problems, from whom they seek assistance;

• if they do not seek assistance, why not; and

• the extent to which servicemember employers provide support beyond 

that required by the law.

To more efficiently and effectively educate employers about USERRA 

through coordinated outreach efforts, which target employers with 

servicemember employees, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense 

take the following two actions:

• Direct the service secretaries to take steps to enforce the requirement 

for servicemembers to report their civilian employment information and 

develop a plan to maintain current civilian employment information. 

• Direct the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs to share 

applicable employer information from DOD’s employer database with 

DOL, OSC, and other federal agencies that educate employers about 

USERRA, consistent with the Privacy Act.

To increase agency responsiveness to servicemember USERRA complaints, 

we recommend that the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Labor, the 

Attorney General, and the Special Counsel develop procedures or systems 

to enable the electronic transfer of complaint information between offices.

To reduce the administrative burden on VETS investigators and improve 

the ability of VETS managers to provide effective, timely oversight of 

USERRA complaint processing, we recommend that the Secretary of Labor 

direct the Assistant Secretary for Veterans’ Employment and Training to 

develop a plan to reduce agency reliance on paper files and fully adopt the 

agency’s automated complaint file system. 

Matter for 

Congressional 

Consideration

To encourage agencies to focus on results rather than outputs, to improve 

federal responsiveness to servicemember complaints that are referred from 

one agency to another, and to improve the completeness and accuracy of 

the annual USERRA reports to Congress, Congress should consider 

designating a single individual or office to maintain visibility over the entire 
Page 42 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

complaint resolution process from DOD through DOL, DOJ, and OSC. For 

example, the office or individual would track and report the actual time it 

takes for federal agencies to fully address servicemember USERRA 

complaints.

Agencies Comments 

and Our Evaluation

In written comments on a draft of this report, DOD, DOL, and OSC 

generally concurred with our findings and recommendations to their 

respective agencies. DOJ reviewed a draft of this report and had no 

comments on this report. DOD deferred to DOL, DOJ, and OSC regarding 

our recommendation for the agencies to develop procedures or systems to 

enable the electronic transfer of complaint information between agencies. 

DOL and OSC commented on our matter for congressional consideration 

that Congress should consider designating a single office to maintain 

visibility over the entire conflict resolution process.

In DOD’s written comments, the department concurred with our 

recommendation for the Secretary of Defense to include questions on 

servicemembers’ employment issues in DOD’s continuing Status of Forces 

surveys that would address (1) the extent to which servicemembers 

experience USERRA-related problems; (2) from whom the servicemembers 

sought assistance if they experienced such problems; (3) if they did not 

seek assistance, why not; and (4) the extent to which the servicemembers’ 

employers provide support beyond that required by law. DOD stated that 

the department’s May 2004 Status of Forces survey asked a series of 

questions about reemployment after activation that included the areas 

addressed in our recommendations. We disagree. For this report, we used 

results from the May 2004 survey that showed at least 72 percent of the 

Selected Reserve members who had experienced USERRA-related 

problems never filed a complaint, informal or formal, to seek assistance in 

resolving the problem. However, the survey did not cover all the areas 

addressed in our recommendation. For example, the survey did not ask 

those servicemembers who had experienced USERRA-related problems 

and never filed a complaint, informal or formal, why they did not seek 

assistance in resolving the problem. We believe that this would be valuable 

information, if gathered regularly, to gauge the effectiveness of federal 

actions to support USERRA by identifying trends in compliance and 

employer support. DOD also stated that, at the request of DOL, it has 

agreed to include the series of questions about reemployment after 

activation in future surveys. OSC generally concurred with this 

recommendation, but had no specific comment. DOL did not comment on 

this recommendation. 
Page 43 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

DOD also concurred with our recommendation for the Secretary of 

Defense to (1) take steps to enforce compliance with servicemembers’ 

reporting of their civilian employer information and maintain employer 

information, and (2) share employer information from the database with 

other federal agencies that educate employers about USERRA. DOD stated 

that the first objective of this recommendation had already been 

accomplished. We disagree. In our report, we noted that compliance with 

the requirement to enter Selected Reserve member employment 

information into the database has risen substantially during this review—

from 13 percent in October 2004, to 58 percent in April 2005, to 73 percent 

in August 2005. We also noted that compliance varies by component, with 

the Army Reserve and the Marine Corps Reserve each having the lowest 

percentage of compliance—66 percent. Further, we noted that compliance 

rates are substantially lower for the Individual Ready Reserve and the 

Inactive National Guard—about 24 percent. Individual Ready Reserve and 

Inactive National Guard members are subject to be recalled to active duty. 

About 9,500 Individual Ready Reserve members were called to duty 

between September 11, 2001, and June 30, 2005. Outreach to employers of 

Individual Ready Reserve members may be even more important than 

outreach to Selected Reserve members’ employers. Individual Ready 

Reserve members do not participate in regular drilling and their employers 

may be unaware of the employees’ military obligations and USERRA rights. 

As the war on terrorism continues, DOD may rely more upon Individual 

Ready Reserve members. DOD also noted that enforcement of compliance 

is a high priority and is already monitored. As noted in our report, 

responsible officials told us that as far as they knew, the military 

departments had not enforced the requirement for servicemembers to 

comply with reporting their civilian employer information by subjecting 

any member to punishment or administrative action for failing to comply. 

We believe DOD has more to accomplish in this area. With regard to the 

second objective of this recommendation, DOD stated that it is working 

collectively with DOL and the Department of Veterans Affairs to ensure 

that their respective systems facilitate consistent reporting capabilities. 

OSC generally concurred with both objectives of this recommendation, but 

had no specific comments. DOL did not comment on this recommendation.

DOD deferred to DOL, DOJ, and OSC regarding our recommendation for 

the Secretary of Defense, along with the Secretary of Labor, the Attorney 

General, and the Special Counsel, to develop procedures or systems to 

enable the electronic transfer of complaint information between agencies. 

DOD stated that the department only tracks “informal inquires,” not 

complaints that are filed with DOL, with possible referral to the DOJ or the 
Page 44 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

OSC. Therefore, establishment of a complaint database would fall within 

the purview of those agencies. DOD noted that it would support the 

sharing of USERRA information received by DOD with responsible 

agencies. We note that DOD’s system can contain extensive ombudsmen 

notes and details about informal complaints, not just inquires for 

information that are tracked separately, and would be beneficial and time 

saving to DOL if an informal complaint becomes a formal complaint filed 

with DOL. DOL concurred with this recommendation and noted that DOL 

has initiated internal discussions on ways in which DOL offices can 

ultimately use one electronic case management system. DOL stated that 

the department will work closely with DOD, DOJ, and OSC in advancing an 

electronic shared system configured to fit the agencies’ responsibilities 

under USERRA. OSC also concurred with this recommendation, noting that 

OSC’s ability to enforce USERRA has not been adversely affected by the 

transfer of information by other than electronic means. Nevertheless, OSC 

noted that the office was dedicated to improving USERRA services to 

servicemembers and thus generally concurred with the recommendation, 

although OSC indicated that the development of USERRA-specific 

electronic files may require additional funding from Congress. 

DOL concurred with our recommendation for the Secretary of Labor to 

develop a plan to reduce agency reliance on paper files and fully adopt the 

agency’s automated complaint file system. DOL noted that the 

establishment of such electronic files would enhance DOL’s ability to more 

efficiently and effectively share documents and other case-specific data 

with other agencies, thus advancing accomplishment of our 

recommendation for DOD, DOL, DOJ, and OSC to develop procedures or 

systems to enable the electronic transfer of complaint information between 

agencies.

DOL and OSC commented on our matter for congressional consideration 

that Congress should consider designating a single office to maintain 

visibility over the entire complaint resolution process from DOD through 

DOL, DOJ, and OSC. DOL noted that the mandated OSC demonstration 

project is ongoing, and therefore, it would be premature to make any 

suggestions or recommendations for congressional or legislative action 

until the pilot has been completed. However, DOL stated that its office is 

uniquely suited to provide an overview of the entire complaint resolution 

process. OSC supported our matter and stated that OSC has unparalleled 

experience and expertise in administering federal sector employment 

complaints and prosecuting meritorious workplace violations before the 

Merit Systems Protection Board. OSC believes that their office is the best 
Page 45 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

qualified to be the overseer. DOD did not comment on this matter. We 

believe that the Congress is the best qualified to determine the identity of 

the overseer and the timing of this matter for congressional consideration. 

DOD, DOL, and OSC’s written comments are reprinted in their entirety in 

appendixes VII, VIII, and IX, respectively. All the agencies also provided 

technical comments, which we incorporated as appropriate.

As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce the contents of 

this report earlier, we plan no further distribution of it until 30 days from 

the date of this letter. We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary 

of Defense; the Secretary of Labor; the Attorney General; the Special 

Counsel; the Secretaries of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force; the 

Commandant of the Marine Corps; the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff; the Director, Office of Management and Budget; and other interested 

congressional committees. We will also make copies available to others 

upon request. In addition, the report will be available at no charge on the 

GAO Web site at www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact me 

at (202) 512-5559 or stewartd@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of 

Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page 

of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to this report are 

listed in appendix XI.

Sincerely yours,

Derek B. Stewart

Director, Defense Capabilities and Management
Page 46 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

Appendix I

Scope and Methodology ApApenednxidexiIs

To assess whether the federal agencies that support or enforce USERRA 

have data that indicates the level of compliance with USERRA, we gathered 

and analyzed data from DOL, DOD, DOJ, and OSC. Specifically, we 

obtained historical data on the numbers of formal complaints handled by 

DOL and then analyzed the data to determine whether the data showed any 

trends and whether it was sufficient to demonstrate overall USERRA 

compliance or employer support. We also analyzed the annual numbers of 

formal complaints referred from DOL to DOJ and OSC between fiscal year 

1997 and the third quarter of fiscal year 2005 to determine whether there 

were trends in the total referrals, or the referrals to either agency.1

 We also 

followed up on our 2002 report2

 to determine whether the ESGR had 

improved its collection of informal complaint data. We interviewed the 

ESGR headquarters officials and ombudsmen who handled informal 

complaints. We observed training for the ESGR’s new database and we 

observed data entry procedures at the ESGR’s Customer Support Center. 

In addition, we analyzed DMDC’s projectable Status of Forces Survey of 

Reserve Component Members, which was conducted in the spring of 2004. 

This survey included more than 20 questions about servicemember 

employment and USERRA-related issues. We also analyzed results from 

the Reserve Officers Association’s annual surveys of Fortune 500 

companies, which asked about policies that support servicemember 

employees. We discussed the agency data related to USERRA compliance 

or employer support, along with the practices and methods used to collect 

these data, with responsible officials from the 

• Department Of Labor, Washington, D.C.;

• Department Of Labor, Veterans Employment and Training Service, Field 

Offices in Memphis, TN, and Norfolk, VA; and regional offices in 

Philadelphia, PA; and Atlanta, GA;

• Department Of Labor, Office of the Solicitor, Washington, D.C.; and 

Regional Offices in Philadelphia, PA, and Atlanta, GA;

• Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.;

1

 Data analysis was performed using DOL’s database, which became officially operational 

beginning fiscal year 1997.

2

 GAO, Reserve Forces: DOD Actions Needed to Better Manage Relations between 

Reservists and Their Employers, GAO-02-608 (Washington, D.C.: June 13, 2002).
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 47 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

• Office of Special Counsel, Washington, D.C.;

• Department Of Defense, Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, 

Arlington, VA; and

• Department Of Defense, Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, 

Customer Service Center, Millington, TN.

We also discussed these issues with 

• The ESGR’s State Ombudsmen Coordinators from AR; IL; KY; MD; TN; 

UT; and Washington, D.C., 

and with officials who were present at

• The ESGR’s Basic Ombudsman Training Session held in Meridian, MS.

To gauge the impact of the ESGR’s ombudsmen program, we conducted a 

survey of ombudsmen nationwide. We wished to survey all ombudsmen 

who were available to handle servicemember complaints as of April 6, 2005 

(the “target” population). To do this, we obtained the list that the ESGR 

was using to assign USERRA complaints to ombudsmen on that date (the 

“study” population), which presumably included all of the individuals who 

were available to handle complaints. We conducted seven pretests of our 

ombudsmen questionnaire prior to administering the survey. During the 

pretests we asked the ombudsmen whether (1) the survey questions were 

clear, (2) the terms used were precise, and (3) the questions were unbiased. 

We made changes to the content and format of the final questionnaire 

based on pretest results.

The ombudsmen surveys were conducted using self-administered 

electronic questionnaires posted on the World Wide Web. The survey 

questionnaire consisted of 12 questions, and asked ombudsmen how many 

USERRA complaints they had received and personally resolved. (App. V 

contains a copy of the survey and the survey results.) On May 3, 2005, we 

used a list supplied by the ESGR headquarters to send E-mail notifications 

to 831 ombudsmen in 54 states and territories to inform them that a survey 

would be forthcoming. Then, on May 9, 2005, we activated the survey, 

sending each of the 831 members of the study population a unique 

password and username by E-mail so they could enter and complete the 

Web-based questionnaire. To encourage ombudsmen to respond, we sent 

two additional E-mail messages over the following 3 weeks. Those 
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 48 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

ombudsmen who were unable to complete the survey online were given the 

option to respond via fax, phone, or mail. We closed the survey on June 9, 

2005. 

Although all members of the study population were surveyed, not every 

member replied to our survey. Specifically, 618 of the 831 members of the 

study population replied. In addition, 52 of the 618 respondents were out of 

scope because they indicated they were not serving as volunteer 

ombudsmen as of April 6, 2005. Table 2 contains a summary of the survey 

disposition for the surveyed cases. The response rate for our survey was 74 

percent. 3

Table 2: Data from GAO’s Survey of the ESGR Ombudsmen

Source: GAO.

We obtained responses from volunteer ombudsmen across the country. 

Although the response rate of ombudsmen differed somewhat across 

states, we have no reason to expect that the responses on the issues 

studied in our survey would be associated with the ombudsmen’s states. 

Therefore, our analysis of the survey data treats the respondents as a 

simple random sample of the population of the ESGR volunteer 

ombudsmen across the country.

Assuming that the respondents constitute a random sample from the study 

population, the particular sample of ombudsmen we obtained was only one 

of a large number of such samples that we might have obtained. To 

recognize the possibility that other samples might have yielded other 

3

 This response rate (number of in scope respondents/estimated total number of in scope 

ombudsmen in the study population) is calculated using the RR3 response rate formula from 

the American Association for Public Opinion Research. In this formula we assumed that the 

percentage of nonrespondents who were within the scope was the same as the percentage 

of the respondents who were within the scope.

Ombudsmen in the study population 831

Ombudsmen replying to the survey 618

Ombudsmen replying who were out of scope 52

In scope respondents 566

Response rate 74 percent
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 49 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

results, we express our confidence in the precision of our particular 

sample’s results as a 95 percent confidence interval. Unless otherwise 

noted, the percentage estimates from the survey have a margin of error of 

plus or minus 3 percent or less with a 95 percent level of confidence. All 

numerical estimates other than percentages have a margin of error of plus 

or minus 14 percent or less of the value of those numerical estimates with a 

95 percent level of confidence, unless otherwise noted.

The practical difficulties of conducting any survey may introduce errors, 

commonly referred to as nonsampling errors. For example, difficulties in 

how a particular question is interpreted, in the sources of information that 

are available to respondents, or in how the data are entered into a database 

or were analyzed, can introduce unwanted variability into the survey 

results. We took steps in the development of the questionnaire, the data 

collection, and the data analysis to minimize these nonsampling errors. For 

example, social science survey specialists designed the questionnaire in 

collaboration with GAO staff with subject matter expertise. Then, the draft 

questionnaire was pretested to ensure that the questions were clearly 

stated and easy to comprehend. When the data were analyzed, a second, 

independent analyst checked all computer programs. Since this was a Webbased survey, most respondents entered their answers directly into the 

electronic questionnaire. This eliminated the need to have the data keyed 

into a database, thus removing an additional source of error. A GAO analyst 

entered responses into our database from those ombudsmen who were 

unable to complete the survey on-line and responded via fax, phone, or 

mail. All these data were independently verified by a second analyst to 

ensure their accuracy.

We also assessed the reliability of the data from the May 2004, Status of 

Forces Survey of Reserve Component Members, by (1) interviewing agency 

officials from 

• the Defense Manpower Data Center, Washington, D.C., and 

• the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs, Washington, 

D.C.,

who were knowledgeable about the data, (2) reviewing existing 

information about the data and the system that produced them, and 

(3) performing electronic testing of required data elements. The response 

rate for the survey was 39 percent. To the extent that respondents and 

nonrespondents had different opinions on the questions asked, the 
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 50 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

estimates from this survey have the potential to be biased. DOD has 

previously conducted and reported on research to assess the impact of 

response rate on overall estimates. DOD found that, among other 

characteristics, junior enlisted personnel (E1 to E4), servicemembers who 

do not have a college degree, and members in services other than the Air 

Force, were more likely to be nonrespondents. We have no reason to 

believe that potential nonresponse bias not otherwise accounted for by 

DOD’s research is substantial for the variables we studied in this report. All 

percentage estimates cited from the survey have sampling errors of plus or 

minus 2.3 percentage points or less, unless otherwise noted. The at least 72 

percent of National Guard and Reserve members who never sought 

assistance for their USERRA problems represents the lower bound of a 95 

percent confidence interval around a point estimate (77 percent) that has a 

plus or minus 5 percent margin of error. Ranges cited from the survey 

represent a 95 percent confidence interval around point estimates. We used 

the weighting factors and the sampling error methodology provided by the 

Defense Manpower Data Center to develop estimates and sampling error 

estimates, and determined that the data from the May 2004 Status of Forces 

Survey of Reserve Component Members were sufficiently reliable for the 

purposes of this report.

To asses the efficiency and effectiveness of federal educational outreach 

efforts, we reviewed Section 4333 of Title 38 of the United States Code to 

determine which agencies have outreach responsibilities under USERRA. 

We interviewed agency officials to determine whether their agencies had 

any significant educational outreach efforts. Although only two of the four 

agencies we reviewed had outreach responsibilities under the law—DOD 

and DOL—officials from three agencies said that they had significant 

outreach activities—DOD, DOL, and OSC. We obtained information about 

each agency’s activities, and analyzed the available outreach figures for 

individual programs and total agency outreach. Because DOD has at least 

nine different formal outreach programs, we devoted an entire appendix 

(app. IV) to the details of DOD’s programs. We also followed up on issues 

related to the collection of servicemember employer information, which 

we raised in our 2002 employer support report.4

 Specifically, we reviewed 

DOD’s policy memoranda that were issued after our 2002 report and which 

mandated that Ready Reserve members supply information about their 

civilian employers. We also monitored and analyzed figures that showed 

4

 GAO, Reserve Forces: DOD Actions Needed to Better Manage Relations between 

Reservists and Their Employers, GAO-02-608 (Washington, D.C.: June 13, 2002).
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 51 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

servicemember rates of compliance with the estimates from this survey on 

these reporting requirements. These compliance figures covered each of 

the reserve components and various reserve categories.

To asses how efficiently and effectively DOD, DOL, DOJ, and OSC 

addressed servicemember complaints, we obtained and analyzed 

information about complaint processing practices, including applicable 

guidance, regulations, or operations manuals. We also obtained and 

reviewed the memorandums of understanding between DOL and DOJ, 

OSC, and the ESGR. To further analyze the entire process, we gathered and 

analyzed information about how the agencies share information from 

USERRA complaint files with one another. We exported data from the 

VETS USERRA Information Management System and analyzed the data to 

look for trends in processing times. We specifically focused our analysis on 

cases that had been closed and later reopened, and on cases that had been 

referred from DOL to DOJ or OSC. We performed multiple sorts of the 

entire data set, and data subsets, to determine whether there were any 

common characteristics in complaint files from the group of complaints 

that remained open for long time periods, or in the complaint files from the 

group of complaints that were quickly resolved. For example, we sorted 

complaint data by: type of employer, regional office, type of 

servicemember, and type of complaint. We used many of the other more 

than 70 data fields to perform data sorts but much of our analysis did not 

yield reportable results because substantial amounts of information were 

missing for certain data fields. However, our analysis of date fields was not 

hampered by missing data and we were able to calculate elapsed times and 

processing times from the available data. 

We assessed the reliability of formal complaint data provided by DOL, DOJ,

and OSC by (1) reviewing existing information about the data and the 

systems that produced them and (2) interviewing and obtaining written 

responses from agency officials knowledgeable about the data. We 

compared data obtained from DOJ and OSC to that captured in the DOL 

USERRA Information Management System. We also compared data drawn 

from DOL’s USERRA Information Management System at different time 

periods to determine the consistency of the data. In addition, where 

available, we compared information from 59 hard copy complaint files to 

data recorded in the DOL system to assess how accurately information was 

being entered into the database. We also discussed informal complaint 

data and its reliability with knowledgeable ESGR officials. On the basis of 

these assessments, we determined that the data were sufficiently reliable 
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 52 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

for the purposes of this report, though agency data systems had some 

limitations that we discussed in the report.

We conducted our work from October 2004 through August 2005 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
Page 53 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

Appendix II

Professional Backgrounds of the ESGR’s 

Volunteer Ombudsmen ApendxiI

Between May 9, 2005, and June 9, 2005, we surveyed the ESGR’s volunteer 

ombudsmen who were available to handle servicemember complaints as of 

April 6, 2005. We received a 74 percent response rate to our survey. Tables 2 

shows that about 58 percent of the volunteer ombudsmen were employed 

in full-time jobs, and about 30 percent were retired.

Table 3: Employment Status of the ESGR’s Ombudsmen (as of April 6, 2005)

Source: GAO.

Note: Estimated percentages have a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent with a 95 percent level 

of confidence.

Table 3 shows the distribution of ombudsmen by their primary employers. 

About 44 percent worked for the government or military, and about 56 

percent worked for private employers, including the approximately 21 

percent who were self-employed.

Employment status Percentage

Employed full-time 58

Employed part-time 11

Retired 30

Not retired or employed 1

Total 100
Appendix II

Professional Backgrounds of the ESGR’s 

Volunteer Ombudsmen

Page 54 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

Table 4: The Primary Employers of the ESGR’s Ombudsmen (as of April 6, 2005)

Source: GAO.

Note: Estimated percentages have a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent with a 95 percent level 

of confidence. 

a

The government and military figures add to 44 percent rather than 43 percent due to rounding.

In addition to the general background employment questions, our survey 

asked respondents to specify their occupations or backgrounds that they 

felt were particularly relevant to their ombudsmen duties. The responses 

were varied and showed that many of the volunteers hold or had previously 

held paid positions that required: leadership, skillful negotiation, extensive 

interactions with different types of people, or knowledge of laws and 

regulations or military operations and procedures. In the information that 

follows, we have grouped the responses and provided some examples of 

the occupations the ombudsmen thought were particularly relevant. The 

ombudsmen said that they had held

• Legal positions ranging from paralegals to attorneys, assistant attorney 

generals and a wide range of judges—administrative law, municipal, 

district, superior court, and state supreme court; 

• Dispute or resolution positions as mediators, negotiators, arbitrators, 

facilitators, and grievance officers;

Primary employer Percentage

Military 15

Federal government (non-military) 9

State government 11

Local government 8

Total government employers 44a

Large private sector firms 18

Small businesses 11

Non-profit or charitable organizations 6

Self employed 21

Total private employers 56

Grand total 100
Appendix II

Professional Backgrounds of the ESGR’s 

Volunteer Ombudsmen

Page 55 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

• Counseling positions as veterans’ career/employment, vocational 

rehabilitation, and recruitment/retention counselors;

• Political positions ranging from local mayor and city council positions 

to lobbyist and state legislature and senate positions;

• Military positions in the active Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine 

Corps; and in the Army Reserve, the Army National Guard, the Air 

National Guard, the Air Force Reserve, the Naval Reserve, the Marine 

Corps Reserve, and the Coast Guard Reserve;

• Federal government positions in the Departments of: Defense, Justice, 

Homeland Security, Labor, Veterans Affairs, Education, Health and 

Human Services, Interior, Corrections, Energy, Agriculture, Treasury, 

and in the U.S. Postal Service;

• State and local government positions in the Departments of Military 

Affairs, Environmental Management, Public Safety, and Aviation; and in 

the Adjutant General’s office;

• Education positions ranging from teachers and college professors, who 

taught mediation and communications, to principal, school 

superintendent, and college president positions;

• Law enforcement positions as police officers, supervisors, or chiefs; 

state troopers, marshals, investigators, and as a liaison between the 

military and a major city police department that employs more that 500 

Guard and Reserve members; 

• Religious positions as chaplain and deacon;

• Business and management positions as labor relations specialists, 

negotiators, human resource managers, public affairs officers, owners, 

general managers, directors, presidents, vice-presidents, and CEOs; and

• Trade organization positions as union officers or shop 

steward/negotiators.
Page 56 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

Appendix III

Department of Labor Form 1010 ApendxiI

OMB NO. 1293-0002 (EXP 03/31/2007)

VETS/USERRA/VP Form 1010 (REV 2/99)

ELIGIBILITY DATA FORM: For claims under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) and/or claims 

under the Veterans’ Preference (VP) provisions of the Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998

U.S. Department of Labor, Veterans’ Employment and Training Service

PLEASE TYPE OR PRINT

Section I: Claimant Information

1. Name: __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 Last Name First Name M.I.

2. Address: _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Street City State ZIP

3. Social Security No: _________________________ 4. Home Phone: _________________________ 5. Work Phone: _______________________

Section II: Uniformed Service Information

6. Serve(d) In: ? Army ? Navy ? Marine Corps ? Air Force ? Coast Guard ? National Guard ? Reserve

 ? Public Health Service ? Other (Explain in “Comments”) ? None (Retaliation Claim – Explain in “Comments”)

7. If Reserve/National Guard:

(a) Name of Unit: _______________________________________________________________________________

(b) Unit Address: _______________________________________________________________________________

(c) Unit Phone: _______________________________

8. Dates of Service (If applicable): (a) From: ________________ To: _______________

OR (b) Date of Examination/Rejection for Service: ________________

9. Type of Discharge or Separation: ? Honorable Conditions ? Entry Level ? Uncharacterized ? Medical

 ? Other than Honorable Conditions ? Other (Explain in “Comments”) ? Not Applicable

Section III: Employer Information

10. Employer or Prospective Employer’s Name: _______________________________________________________________________

11. Address: __________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 Street City County State ZIP

12. Principal Employer Contact (PEC):

 (a) PEC Name/Title: ___________________________________________ (b) PEC Phone: __________________________________________

13. Employment Dates (If applicable): From: ____________________ To: ____________________

14. Since beginning work with this employer, has your cumulative uniformed service exceeded 5 years? ? Yes ? No

 If YES, explain in Comments box at end of this claim form.

15. Name of Union(s) That Represent You: ______________________________________________________
Appendix III

Department of Labor Form 1010

Page 57 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

Section IV: Claim Information

If Claim Concerns Veterans’ Preference in Federal Employment

16. Preference Issue (Check One): ? Hiring ? Reduction-in-Force (RIF)

If Claim Concerns Employment Discrimination under USERRA

17. Employment Discrimination Issue(s): ? Hiring ? Reemployment ? Promotion ? Termination ? Benefits of Employment

If Claim Concerns Hiring, Promotion, RIF or Termination

18. Title of Position Held or Applied For: _____________________________________________________________

19. Pay Rate: __________________________

20. Date of Application Employment/Promotion: ________________________

 20a. Vacancy Announcement No.: ______________________________________________________________________

 20b. Date Vacancy Opened: __________________________ 20c. Date Vacancy Closed: _________________________

If Claim Concerns Reemployment Following Service

21. Was Prior Notice of Service Provided to Employer? ? Yes ? No (If “No,” Explain in Comments)

22. (a) Who Provided Notice of Service to Employer? ? Self ? Other (name): _______________________________________

 (b) Was the Notice of Service: ? Written ? Oral ? Both

 (c) Date Notice of Service was given to Employer: _______________________

23. Name/Title of Person to Whom Notice of Service was Provided: _________________________________________

24. Date Applied for Reemployment: ______________________ OR Date Returned to Work: ______________________

25. Reemployment Application Made To: Name: _________________________________ Title: _____________________________

26. Reemployed or Reinstated? ? Yes (date): ______________________ ? No

 (a) If YES, what position? ____________________________________ at what pay rate? ________________________

 (b) If NO, Date denied: ___________________ Reason given: ______________________________________________

 (c) Who denied (name): ____________________________________

PUNISHMENT FOR UNLAWFUL STATEMENTS

The information provided in this complaint will be utilized by the U.S. Department of Labor, Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS) to initiate 

an investigation of alleged violations of the Uniformed Service Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) and/or the Veterans’ Preference (VP) 

provisions of the Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA). Potential claimants should keep in mind that it is unlawful to “knowingly and 

willfully” make any “materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statements or representation” to a federal agency. Violations can be punished under Section 2 of 

the False Statements Accountability Act of 1996 by a fine and/or imprisonment of not more than 5 years. 18 U.S.C. § 1001.

I certify that the above information is true and correct to the best of my knowledge and belief. I authorize the U.S. Department of Labor to contact my 

employer or any other person for information concerning this claim. Pursuant to 5 U.S.C., Section 552(b) of the Privacy Act, I consent to the release of the 

above information and any records necessary for the investigation and prosecution of my claim.

SIGNATURE: ___________________________________________________________ DATE: _________________________________

Persons are not required to response to the collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. Public reporting burden for this 

collection of information is estimated to average 15 minutes per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, 

gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any 

other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to the U.S. Department of Labor, Veterans’ Employment and 

Training Service, Room-S1316, 200 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20210.

PRIVACY ACT STATEMENT

The primary use of this information is by staff of the Veterans’ Employment and Training Service in investigating cases under USERRA or laws/regulations 

relating to veterans’ preference in Federal employment. Disclosure of this information may be made to: a Federal, state or local agency for appropriate 

reasons; in connection with litigation; and to an individual or contractor performing a Federal function. Furnishing the information on this form, including 

your Social Security Number, is voluntary. However, failure to provide this information may jeopardize the Department of Labor’s ability to provide 

assistance on your claim.

Continue in Comments box &/or use additional sheet(s) to explain items if needed – Sign and date form (above)

OMB NO. 1293-0002 (EXP 03/31/2007)

VETS/USERRA/VP Form 1010 (REV 2/99) – Page 2
Appendix III

Department of Labor Form 1010

Page 58 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

Explain your claim in detail – List all remedies you seek

Use additional sheet(s) if needed – Initial & date each page at bottom

Comments: _____________________________________________________________________________________________________

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INITIALS: ____________ DATE: ____________

OMB NO. 1293-0002 (EXP 03/31/2007)

VETS/USERRA/VP Form 1010 (REV 2/99) – Page 3
Page 59 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

Appendix IV

DOD’s Outreach Programs ApendxiIV

The ESGR has responsibility for most DOD outreach programs but DOD 

also has a public affairs campaign that encourages employer support of 

servicemember employees. In past years, the ESGR’s focus was on 

educating servicemembers concerning their employment rights. In fiscal 

year 2005, the ESGR shifted its focus to educating employers. The new 

focus better aligns with the ESGR’s mission—to gain and maintain support 

for employee military service from all public and private employers of the 

men and women of the National Guard and Reserve. To fulfill its mission, 

the ESGR has developed and implemented a number of employer outreach 

efforts. In addition to the ESGR’s “statement of support” and awards 

programs, which were discussed in the body of this report, the ESGR has a 

number of other outreach programs that are discussed below. Some of 

these efforts are well underway, others are relatively new.

The ESGR Outreach 

Programs

• Mass Market Outreach. This ESGR effort has used public service 

advertising and mass marketing to make employers and the general 

public aware of the importance of employer support for Guard and 

Reserve members who are called to military service, and the role that 

the ESGR can play in encouraging supportive employer relations. 

• Strategic Partnerships. Through these partnerships with the national 

headquarters and local chapters of the Chamber of Commerce, Society 

for Human Resource Management, National Federation of Independent 

Business, Small Business Administration, and Rotary Club, the ESGR 

strives to educate employers about USERRA, the ESGR organization, 

and the different ways employers can support their servicemember 

employees. The ESGR uses a variety of media, trade show, and speaking 

opportunities to reach this target audience. The ESGR’s goal was to 

reach at least 430 local chapters of these groups in fiscal year 2005. As of 

July 2005, the ESGR had met with 250 of its strategic partners.

• Industry Segment Outreach. This outreach effort is focused on 

leaders in industries that employ significant numbers of reserve 

component members. For about 5 years, DOD leaders have met 

regularly with key officials from the airline industry to discuss concerns 

that arise as the military and industry share the same personnel 

resources. In fiscal year 2005, the ESGR planned to hold three similar 

symposiums with (1) law enforcement, (2) fire and safety officials, and 

(3) city and municipal leaders. However, none of the other symposiums 

had taken place when we ended our review in August 2005.
Appendix IV

DOD’s Outreach Programs

Page 60 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

• Federal Government Outreach. USERRA states that the federal 

government should be a model employer. The ESGR is encouraging the 

17 cabinet-level departments and 81 independent federal government 

agencies to sign the ESGR statements of support as a means to 

demonstrate their commitment to their servicemember employees. The 

ESGR established a goal to have10 federal government agencies sign 

statements of support in fiscal year 2005. As of August 2005, a total of 20 

federal agencies had signed statements of support. 

• 5-Star Program. In the past, the ESGR’s outreach efforts were focused 

on simply asking employers to sign statements of support for their 

National Guard and Reserve members. The statement of support simply 

stated that employers would fulfill their obligations by complying with 

USERRA. Currently in its first year, the 5-Star Program seeks to get 

employers more actively involved in the management of their National 

Guard and Reserve employees. The five steps of the 5-Star Program are 

to

(1) sign a statement of support,

(2) review employer human resource policies with respect to employer 

support,

(3) train supervisors and managers on USERRA,

(4) provide “above and beyond” human resource policies, and 

(5) advocate for National Guard and Reserve members.

• Bosslifts. Bosslifts are usually 2- to 3-day outreach events where 

employers, civic leaders, and legislators are taken to Guard or Reserve 

units to observe Guard or Reserve members in action. These events 

present employers with opportunities to directly observe the technical, 

organizational, team building, and leadership skills of their employees. 

They also provide employers with opportunities to observe military 

training, some of which may be directly related to their employees’ 

civilian jobs. Each ESGR state committee is programmed for one 

nationally sponsored bosslift each year. However, based on the size and 

distribution of its reserve component population, California is 

programmed for two bosslifts. Additional committee-sponsored 

bosslifts are authorized and encouraged. Some state committees 

sponsor and fund bosslifts using state funding.

• Employer Briefings. Employer briefings provide a forum for local 

employers, unit commanders, the ESGR members, and community 

leaders to meet, network, and discuss issues that arise from employee 
Appendix IV

DOD’s Outreach Programs

Page 61 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

participation in the National Guard and Reserve. The meeting site can be 

a local restaurant, hotel, service club, Chamber of Commerce, National 

Guard Armory, Reserve Center, or military installation. This is a locallevel 1-day activity funded at the state level.

Other DOD Outreach 

Efforts 

• Defense Advisory Board. In August 2003, the Secretary of Defense 

created a defense advisory board composed of 15 to 25 industry public 

and private sector leaders to act as consultants without compensation. 

The board was established for up to 3 years and provides advice to the 

Secretary of Defense about issues concerning Reserve component 

members and their civilian employers. It also recommends policies and 

priorities for employer support actions and programs. The board meets 

at least twice a year at the call of the National Chairman, and as needed 

to address emergent issues. In March 2005, this board met with both the 

Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense. Board members included a 

state governor, a major city fire chief, and representatives from 

employer associations, higher education, and the airline, information 

technology, aircraft repair, transportation, public relations and public 

affairs, defense and aerospace systems, investment banking, and food 

industries.

• America Supports You. This is a nationwide program launched by 

DOD’s public affairs office to recognize citizens’ support for military 

men and women and to communicate that support to members of the 

Armed Forces at home and abroad. Participants can join the team at

www.americasupportsyou.mil, share their stories of support with the 

nation and troops, and download program materials. In turn, military 

members will access the Web site and learn about America’s support for 

their service. In addition to personal stories of support, the Web site has 

a section that recognizes employer support for servicemembers and 

particularly for servicemember employees.
Page 62 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

Appendix V

GAO’s Survey of the ESGR’s Volunteer 

Ombudsmen Including Results ApendxiV

This appendix presents a facsimile of the actual questions asked in our 

survey of the ESGR ombudsmen along with aggregate responses. The 

results presented have been weighted to correspond to the universe of the 

ESGR ombudsmen. See appendix I, Scope and Methodology, for a detailed 

discussion of this process.
Appendix V

GAO’s Survey of the ESGR’s Volunteer 

Ombudsmen Including Results

Page 63 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

1. Were you serving as an Ombudsman and available to handle cases as of April 6, 2005? 

(Select one answer.)

 N=754 

 98%  Yes (Continue.)

 2%  No (Click here to skip to question 12.)

2. How long have you served as an Ombudsman with the ESGR? (Select one answer.)

 N=746 

 16%  Less than 1 year 

 35%  1 to less than 3 years 

 27%  3 to less than 7 years 

 21%  7 or more years 

 No response 1

3. Have you received or not received each of the following types of training either prior to or since 

becoming an Ombudsmen? (Select one answer in each row.)

Yes No No response 

a. Basic Ombudsman training 97% 3% N=748 

b. Advanced Ombudsman training 34% 66% N=748 

c. Mediation training 20% 80% N=748 

d. Other training related to your 

 Ombudsman duties 

40% 60% N=747 

4. If you received any of the above types of training, what was the year of the most recent training you 

received? (Enter year of training. Please enter all four digits of the year, e.g., “2004”.) 

Basic Ombudsman training 

Year 2005-10% 2004-22% 2003-23% 2002 or earlier-45% N=698 

 Advanced Ombudsman training 

Year 2005-8% 2004-33% 2003-26% 2002 or earlier-33% N=244 

 Mediation training 

Year 2005-11% 2004-41% 2003-18% 2002 or earlier-30% N=137 

 Other Ombudsman-related training 

Year 2005-31% 2004-27% 2003-13% 2002 or earlier-29% N=259 

1

 Respondents were given the option of not responding to specific survey questions. A small number of 

respondents selected this option. 
Appendix V

GAO’s Survey of the ESGR’s Volunteer 

Ombudsmen Including Results

Page 64 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

If you received any “other training related to your Ombudsman duties”, what was included in that 

training and at what specific location(s) did that training take place? 

5. Since becoming an ESGR Ombudsman, what is the total number of cases that you have handled?

(Enter number. If none, enter zero.) 

Total cases handled Minimum = 0 cases Maximum = 2,000 cases 

Mean = 51.4 cases Total = 37,684 cases N=735 

 Please indicate whether the number you entered in question 5 above was an... (Select one answer.) 

 N=727

 44%  Exact number (from records or memory) 

 56%  Estimate 

 No response 

6. Since becoming an ESGR Ombudsman, what is the total number of cases that you have personally 

resolved, that is that you brought to closure yourself? (Enter number. If none, enter zero.)

Note: Do not include cases that were dropped or referred to other offices, i.e., Department of Labor, 

Veterans’ Employment and Training Service or ESGR national headquarters or state coordinators. 

Number personally resolved Minimum = 0 cases Maximum = 1940 cases 

 

 Mean = 40.6 cases Total=29,816 cases N=735 

 Please indicate whether the number you entered in question 5 above was ... (Select one answer.) 

N=725

 50%  Exact number (from records or memory) 

 50%  Estimate 

 No response 

7. On average, how many hours do you spend in a typical week on your ESGR Ombudsman duties? 

(Enter number.)

Hours Minimum = 0 hours Maximum = 45 hours 

 Mean = 3.7 hours N=730 
Appendix V

GAO’s Survey of the ESGR’s Volunteer 

Ombudsmen Including Results

Page 65 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

Apart from your work as an ESGR Ombudsman, we are interested in finding out a few things about your 

current employment, or if you are retired, your former employment. 

8. Other than your work as an ESGR Ombudsman, are you currently employed full-time (35 hours or 

more per week), employed part-time (34 hours or less per week), retired, or not currently employed? 

(Select one answer.)

N=742

 58%  Employed full-time 

 11%  Employed part-time 

30%  Retired 

 1%  Not currently employed, but not retired 

 No response 

9. Other than your work as an ESGR Ombudsman, which one of the following best describes your 

primary employer? (If you are not currently employed or retired, answer for your former primary 

employer.) (Select one answer.)

N=730

 15%  Military (Answer question 9a below.)

 9%  Federal government (non-military) (Answer question 9a below.)

 11%  State government (Answer question 9a below.)

 8%  Local government (Answer question 9a below.)

 18%  Corporation or large private sector firm 

 11%  Small business 

 6%  Non-profit or charitable organization 

 21%  Self-employed 

 No response 

9a. If you answered military, federal government (non-military), state, or local government in 

question 9 above, in what branch of the military or specific government agency are/were you 

employed? 

10. Other than your work as an ESGR Ombudsman, which one of the following best describes your 

current primary occupation? (If you are not currently employed or retired, answer for your former 

primary occupation.) (Select one answer.)

N=703

 2%  Military - attorney/JAG 

 12%  Military - non-attorney officer 

 6%  Military - enlisted 

 16%  Nonmilitary - attorney 

 64%  Nonmilitary - not an attorney (Answer question 10a below.)

 No response 
Appendix V

GAO’s Survey of the ESGR’s Volunteer 

Ombudsmen Including Results

Page 66 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

10a. If you answered “Nonmilitary - not an attorney” in question 10 above, and your primary or 

former occupation directly relates to your ESGR ombudsman responsibilities (e.g., mediator, 

negotiator, etc.), please enter this occupation in the space below. 

11. If you have had more than one occupation that directly relates to your ombudsmen responsibilities, 

please list the secondary occupation (that was not covered by questions 9 and 10) in the box below. 

12. If you would like to make any suggestions on how to make the ESGR Ombudsman program more 

successful, please use the space below. (You may enter as much text as you like. The space will 

expand to accommodate your response.) 

Is your survey completed and therefore ready for submission to GAO? (Only completed surveys will 

be used in our analysis.) (Select one response.)

 1.  Completed 

 2.  Not completed 
Page 67 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

Appendix VI

DOL’s USERRA Information Poster ApendxiVI
Page 68 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

Appendix VII

Comments from the Department of Defense ApendxiVI
Appendix VII

Comments from the Department of Defense

Page 69 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights
Appendix VII

Comments from the Department of Defense

Page 70 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights
Page 71 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

Appendix VIII

Comments from the Department of Labor ApendxiVI
Appendix VIII

Comments from the Department of Labor

Page 72 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights
Page 73 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

Appendix IX

Comments from the Office of Special Counsel ApendxiIX
Appendix IX

Comments from the Office of Special Counsel

Page 74 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights
Appendix IX

Comments from the Office of Special Counsel

Page 75 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights
Appendix IX

Comments from the Office of Special Counsel

Page 76 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights
Appendix IX

Comments from the Office of Special Counsel

Page 77 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights
Appendix IX

Comments from the Office of Special Counsel

Page 78 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights
Appendix IX

Comments from the Office of Special Counsel

Page 79 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights
Appendix IX

Comments from the Office of Special Counsel

Page 80 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights
Page 81 GAO-06-60 USERRA Employment Rights

Appendix X

GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments ApendxiX

GAO Contact Derek B. Stewart, (202) 512-5559 or stewartd@gao.gov

Acknowledgments In addition to the contact named above, Brenda S. Farrell, Assistant 

Director; Renee S. Brown; Jonathan Clark; Michael J. Ferren; Stuart M. 

Kaufman; Susanna R. Kuebler; Mary Jo Lacasse; Ronald La Due Lake; 

Susan J. Mason; Jennifer R. Popovic; and Irene A. Robertson made 

significant contributions to the report.

(350609)
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