Daily Telegraph 17/01/2003

Many reservists called up compulsorily to fight a war against Iraq are asking to be exempted because they face the sack if they do go, defence sources said yesterday.

Others who have only been asked if they would be willing to volunteer for future call-ups have refused to come forward unless it is compulsory, in an attempt to protect themselves from possible dismissal.

"A lot of the employers of those called up are seriously unimpressed," one source said.

"It's throwing up a lot of anomalies. There is so little on the statute book that protects either employers or indeed employees."

The problems are such that the Ministry of Defence took out a series of newspaper advertisements this week offering "essential information for employers of reservists" in an attempt to make them aware of their responsibilities.

Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, announced last week that 1,500 reservists were being mobilised, with further tranches to follow over the coming weeks. The total number is expected to be about 8,000.

Under the Reserve Forces Safeguard of Employment Act 1985 employers are obliged to keep a reservist's job open, but it is difficult to enforce.

One Royal Auxiliary Air Force officer called up for service during the Kosovo conflict was sacked from his £75,000-a-year post with the merchant bank Credit Suisse First Boston.

Sebastian Nokes, 35, from London, was forced to take his employers to an industrial tribunal in an attempt to be reinstated, but eventually settled the dispute and withdrew his complaint.

There are also concerns among some servicemen and women because the compensation for loss of salary is based on their service rank rather than the loss of pay.

The maximum any serviceman or woman up to the rank of corporal or equivalent can receive is £22,500, regardless of his or her civilian job. That increases according to rank, with warrant officers receiving up to £37,500, majors up to £55,000 and colonels up to £70,000.

Many lower ranks earn far more in their civilian jobs than they receive during their period of mobilisation.

With any reservist called up for Iraq obliged to serve as long as a year, many will face difficulty keeping up mortgage repayments.

"There is immense gloom among many of the reservists," one defence source said. "It's not because they don't want to go to war, it's because they are scared they will lose their job or even their home."

Sabre, the MoD organisation set up to provide support to employers and reservists, said Mr Nokes's case was "untypical". It was "very much the exception that an employee has to go to a tribunal to get his job back".

But if a reservist was dismissed for absence caused by his or her mobilisation they had to take the case to tribunal: the Government could not force the employer to reinstate them.

Employers complain that they receive very little in the way of realistic compensation for the loss of an employee, no matter how important they are to the company.

The company can claim up to £2,400 for the cost of finding a replacement but only a maximum of £31 a week for any administrative difficulties it faces as a result.

The MoD said yesterday about 900 of those called up in the first tranche, who all have to report by Feb 3, were from the RAAF, with 300 from the Army and a similar number from the Royal Navy.

The vast bulk of those to be called up in the subsequent tranches will be from the Army. The army's mobilisation centre at Chilwell, Notts, is expecting to handle 6,500 reservists.

They will be given a medical examination and necessary inoculations, kit and equipment before being sent for training at Donington, Shropshire, or Strensall, near York.

(c) Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003.