Rhode Island Reemployment Rights and Seniority Credit for Time Served

Rhode Island's own reemployment statutes predate federal USERRA by fifty years and remain in force alongside it. They do two things USERRA does not. Section 30-21-1 requires a former employer to reinstate an employee who entered the armed forces, upon honorable discharge, to the former employment or to a position of like seniority, status, and pay, if the employee requests it within forty days after discharge and is still qualified to perform the duties. The employer is excused where circumstances have so changed as to make reinstatement impossible or unreasonable. A person, firm, or corporation violating the section is subject to a fine of not less than fifty dollars and not more than five hundred dollars. Forty days is a short clock and it is much shorter than the federal reporting deadlines under USERRA, which run to ninety days for long service. A returning veteran should treat forty days as the operative deadline in Rhode Island and make the request in writing, because the state remedy turns on having asked inside it. Section 30-21-2 is the one worth the most and is almost never mentioned. Any member of the armed forces who is reemployed by a prior employer within one year after honorable discharge, on proper proof of service and its length, shall be given by the employer, in addition to the seniority rights held when they left, "additional seniority rights equal to the time he served in the armed forces". The years in uniform count as years at the company for seniority. In a unionized workplace, or anywhere seniority governs shift bidding, layoff order, or vacation selection, that provision is the difference between returning at the bottom of a list and returning above people hired while you were gone. Knowing violation of sections 30-21-2 through 30-21-6 is a misdemeanor carrying a fine of up to one thousand dollars. The seniority right can be waived by the veteran on a form prescribed by the director of labor and training, under section 30-21-4. It should not be waived casually. Two limits. Section 30-21-6 provides that nothing requires an employer to hire a person who in the employer's judgment is not qualified for the position. And section 30-21-5 provides that the seniority provisions do not give a World War II veteran any preference over an honorably discharged veteran of any other war. A related provision sits in chapter 30-20. Any certificate issued under Rhode Island law authorizing a person to practice a specific regulated profession, or to carry on a special trade or business occupation, which expires while the holder is in the military, naval, or air service, shall be renewed without further examination on payment of the prescribed fee, at any time within four months after discharge. A nurse, electrician, or barber whose license lapsed on deployment does not re-sit the examination, but the four-month window is firm. No disability rating is involved in any of this, so the rating filter never hides this entry.