Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Lawmakers Introduce Access to Justice for Servicemembers Act

Statement

Today Reps. Tulsi Gabbard (HI-02), David N. Cicilline (RI-01), Joe Wilson (SC-02), Walter Jones (NC-03), Steve Russell (OK-05), and Matt Cartwright (PA-17) introduced the Access to Justice for Servicemembers Act. The bill strengthens the rights to employment protection for U.S. servicemembers and ensures they can sue if an employer eliminates their job because they are serving on active duty.

"Our servicemembers should not have to worry about losing their job at home while they put their lives on the line for our country. Yet too many employers have tried to skirt around the law by requiring workers to sign away their rights to employment protection with an arbitration agreement. The Access to Justice for Servicemembers Act will reinforce the rights granted to our servicemembers under USERRA and ensure that they can focus on their mission and get home safely, while on active duty or deployed," said Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a Member of the Armed Services Committee and co-chair of the Congressional Post 9/11 Veterans Caucus.

"All of us are fortunate to live in a free and safe society thanks to the incredible service and enormous sacrifices of the men and women of the United States Armed Forces," said Congressman Cicilline. "No person who has served our country in uniform should ever struggle because it was more profitable for an employer to fire them while they were on active duty halfway around the world. The bipartisan Access to Justice for Servicemembers Act will ensure that every member of the Armed Forces has the right to go to court and not to mandatory arbitration. I'm grateful that members of both parties are supporting this commonsense proposal to do right by our veterans."

"I applaud Representatives Cicilline, Wilson, Jones, Russell, Cartwright, and Gabbard for introducing this vitally important bipartisan legislation to restore the longstanding reemployment rights of veterans who have honorably served in the Armed Forces. I am hopeful that bipartisan leaders in Congress will come together to pass this legislation in 2016," said Lieutenant Kevin Ziober, a Navy reservist who served in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan from 2013 to 2014. The day before that deployment began, Ziober's employer, BLB Resources, Inc., a federal contractor, wrongfully terminated Ziober and later prevented Ziober from enforcing his rights by invoking an arbitration agreement that Ziober was forced to sign as a condition of employment.

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