[wimpycat]

There might be valid reasons for terminating his employment, such as if his termination was part of a layoff or job elimination affecting more than just himself. Maybe his department was restructured or eliminated. If other, non-reservist employees were terminated at the same time, I don't think he'll have much of a case.

You can't terminate reservists because of the inconvenience of them being called to active duty, just like you can't terminate someone because they were injured on the job, or because they are pregnant, but that doesn't mean you can't legally terminate reservists on active duty or people out on worker's comp, or pregnant employees.

[Movemout]

You are absolutely correct. However, I think that it is the wrong thing to do to a marine put in harms way. I would go out of my way to find a placeholder for this marine for when he gets back under any of the circumstances you describe. Legal doesn't equal moral.

[Poohbah]

The most likely account, however, is that they did terminate him because he'd been called to active duty.

[2nd amendment mama]

just like you can't terminate someone because they were injured on the job,

In CT you can terminate someone while they are fighting a Worker's Comp claim - it happened to me. My doctor ordered me out of work - the company was fighting the claim and they terminated me because they claimed I "refused" come in to work. It was a mess! Since they were fighting the claim they also didn't have to pay me comp while the dispute was going on. The whole mess took almost a year to come to an end. They just hope that you'll run out of money and stop fighting!

[RedWhiteBlue]

Another possible layoff scenario might go like this: A company needs to lay off a given number of workers. For the hourly positions, especially union jobs, that means that everyone with x number of years or less seniority has to go. Someone could easily get caught in a layoff in this type situation and it would not be an illegal move by the employer to let them go. In fact, the employer cannot give special treatment to the employee called to active duty or treat them any differently than the others that are laid off based on seniority because they are bound by the layoff rules of the contract that they signed with the union.

However, the article does not use the word "layoff," but says he was "fired." We definitely need more information here before we can say for sure who is at fault, but as stated it does not look good for Hyundai.