Michigan Private Employer Veterans Preference

Without an authorising statute, a private employer preferring veterans risks a disparate impact claim, because veteran status correlates with sex and age. The private employer's veterans' preference policy act, 2014 PA 508, is Michigan's answer. What it permits. A private employer may adopt and apply a voluntary veterans' preference employment policy, defined as a voluntary preference for hiring, promoting, or retaining a veteran over another equally qualified applicant or employee. The words "equally qualified" are doing work: this is a tie-breaker, not a licence to prefer a less qualified candidate. Two conditions, and both are enforceable requirements rather than advice. The policy shall be in writing, and it shall be applied uniformly to employment decisions regarding hiring or promotion of veterans or retention of veterans during a reduction in the workforce. An employer applying an unwritten preference, or applying one inconsistently, is outside the act's protection. The retention limb is the one most often overlooked. A written policy may protect veterans in a layoff, which is a more valuable thing for an existing employee than a hiring preference is for an applicant. Who counts as a veteran here. Section 35.1201(2)(b) requires both that the person is a veteran under 35.61, and that they served at least 180 days of active duty in the armed forces or have a service-connected disability as a result of that service. That is a third Michigan definition: broader than the preference act for public employment, which asks for an honorable discharge, and narrower than 35.61 alone, which asks for no minimum service at all. A Guard member who never served 180 days of active duty and has no service-connected disability is a veteran of Michigan but is not within this act. A private employer means a sole proprietor, corporation, partnership, limited liability company, or other private entity with one or more employees, so there is no small-employer exemption. What the act does not do. It creates no duty, no entitlement for any veteran, and no remedy. A veteran cannot sue a private employer for failing to adopt a policy or, on the face of the act, for misapplying one. It is a shield for the employer rather than a sword for the veteran, and its practical value to a job seeker is that it makes a Michigan employer's veterans preference lawful and therefore real. The separate Veteran Right to Employment Services Act, 1994 PA 39, uses the same 180-day-or-disability definition and requires agencies administering federally or state funded employment services or job training programs to give a veteran candidate effective and equitable services and a referral pamphlet identifying benefits available through other agencies.