Reservists told to inform their employers

Employers have been given the right to be told if their employees are members of the volunteer reserve forces.

New regulations, effective from 1 April 2004, impose an obligation on new employees to tell their employers about their reserve status. (Their commanding officer will write to the employer officially, but the Ministry of Defence strongly advises reservists to speak to their employer themselves beforehand.) With some 12,000 reservists now mobilised in Iraq and elsewhere, employers have been lobbying the government for the right to know.

There are approximately 40,000 reservists in the Territorial Army (TA), accounting for about one quarter of the British Army. The TA website informs personnel that mobilisation is usually voluntary but that, if the situation is "extremely serious", they may be compulsorily called up.

While the Reserve Forces (Safeguard of Employment) Act 1985 gives reservists the right to job protection against dismissal due to their being called up, it does not cover discrimination at the point of recruitment. This means that employers can lawfully refuse to employ someone on the grounds that they are a reservist.