On Thursday, June 21, 2012, the Reserve Officers Association
will testify in a hearing held by the House Committee on Veterans Affairs
Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity. The hearing will focus on bills that will
improve the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) to protect housing as well
as amend Title 38 of the United States Code to protect veteran employment.
US Code Title 38 includes provisions on employment of
veterans, including the Uniformed Service Employment and Reemployment Act
(USERRA). Thursday’s hearing will include two bills to improve employment
protections. H.R. 3860 – the Help veterans Return to work act would help
reemployments, by tightening up USERRA by permitting only small business
concerns to claim hardship exemptions if unable to rehire a disabled Reserve
Component member. Currently any size business can make this claim.
H.R.4115 – the Hire at Home Act codifies the need to credit any military
training as one of the program functions of the Assistant Secretary of Labor
for Veteran’s Employment and Training.
The SCRA legislation provides a wide range of protections
for service members called to duty. It is intended to postpone or suspend
certain civil obligations to enable service members to devote full attention to
duty and relieve stress on the family members of those deployed service members.
However, the changing nature of contingency operations and the conditions of
service today indicate that the SCRA must be continuously reviewed to protect
service families. Realizing this, the House of Representatives introduced the
Fairness for Military Homeowners Act of 2012 and the Military Family Home
Protection Act.
Under the Fairness for Military Homeowners Act of 2012 (H.R.
4740), SCRA would be amended to ensure that certain relocations of a service
member for duty away from the service member’s principle residence does not
prevent him or her from refinancing the mortgage on that principle
residence. In addition, the Military Family Home Protection Act (H.R.
5747) would amend SCRA to improve expand protections against mortgage
foreclosures to serving members who are deployed to contingency operations,
military who are retired for a disability at a 100 percent rating.
As discussed at an ROA Defense Education
Forum event earlier this month, small business is the engine of our
economy, creating hundreds of jobs each year. Last month alone, small
businesses added 57,000 jobs, helping to ease the unemployment rate.[1]
Today there are thousands of Small Business Administration 8(a) certified, VA
certified Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVSOB) and VA
certified Veteran Owned Small Business (VOSB) companies currently doing
business across the country. In the military contracting arena, small business
succeeds in creating jobs by providing quality, flexible and cost effective
solutions.
For Reservists and Guardsmen, these proposed bills would
ensure a better quality of life upon returning home from deployments and
transitioning back to their civilian lives. Having to carry the weight of their
military obligations, ROA will see to it that Congress works to alleviate the
weight of civilian obligations for today’s service members.
ROA’s testimony is embargoed until after Thursday’s morning
testimony, but it will be posted at www.roa.org/testimony following the
hearing.
[1] The
unemployment rate among Reservists and Guardsmen today is 150% that of the
national average. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzDzQ3-Vfbs&feature=plcp
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