Ohio Military Status Updated

The state of Ohio has updated their Fair Employment law, adding “Military Status” as a new protective category effective March 23, 2008.

Ohio Governer Ted Strichland has signed into law the Ohio Veterans Package, Substitute House Bill 372. Ohio’s Anti Discrimination law now includes “military status” as a protected class for purposes of employment, housing, and public accommodations. Already included as protected classes under Ohio law are race, color, sex, disability, national origin, age (40& older), ancestry and religion.

“Military status” refers to a person’s status in “service in the uniformed services.” “Service in the uniformed services” means the performance of duty in a uniformed service under competent authority, including active duty, active duty for training, initial active duty for training, inactive duty for training, full-time national guard duty and performance of duty or training by a member of the Ohio organized militia in accordance with the Revised Code.

The federal Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) already protects military service, but the new Ohio amendments broaden this protection. Ohio employers will now need to include “military status” as a protected category on their Fair Employment labor law postings; the state is in the process of updating and releasing new fair employment law postings as of this writing, on 4/7/08.