Why we pay Reservists what we do (Including Reg v.s. Cl B v.s. Cl C pay, and Double-Dippin')

[dapaterson]

TCBF:

interesting perspective.

Way out to lunch in many respects.

But interesting nonetheless...

Of the Army reservists working full time:  About 1/8 are outside the Army - lots in the recruiting and training systems, some scattered throughout NDHQ, and others working for other environments (and, of course, the dot COM and their RJFT HQs).  Of the remainder, they're in three roughly equal groups:  those deployed or in pre-deployment training; those working in Reserve units, and those backfilling the Reg F in area HQs, army schools, and bases.

In terms of the Res units, there's an official template for the full-time support they should get.  But the Reg F is failing to pull its weight - about 25% of those positions have gone unfilled.  So more reservists get hired to backfill those slots.  There are a few folks above and beyond those level as well.

-  We ran things just fine without them before.  You could slash the Class B budgets and give the cash to the Class A budgets and the Militia could increase their strength. 

And we also spent decades with the Reg F "training for war" but parked on their rucks doing nothing.  The Reserve contribution to the Army today is what's kept the Army from collapsing years ago (not my words - those of a Reg F BGen).

 

[TCBF]

ALSO
Reservists are free to apply to fill temporary full time positions within the CF.  You will find reservists working at pert much every level of command throughout the CF.  Contracts can be for as long as 3 years... renewable

- But those positions should not be sacred.  He may have a three year contract, buy if I need that posting for one of my people, the Career Manager should be able to de-list it as a Reserve vacancy and post in a Regular - before three years.

 

[TCBF]

And we also spent decades with the Reg F "training for war" but parked on their rucks doing nothing. 

;D

- You don't play well with others, do you?

 

[dapaterson]

Nah, why should I play nice?  >

But on a more serious note, right now the shortage of pers at key ranks means career managers don't have the luxury of posting people to "R&R" postings; instead, they work to fill the Pri 1 and pri 2 positions.  Anything else that gets filled is just gravy.  In certain corps, the Reg F is filling less than 40% of positions in support of Reserve units - they just don't have the people to do fill positions.

We are years away from getting to the new normal in personnel; the lack of Reg F recruiting in the 90s has lead to the shortfalls in mid-level leadership the Reg F is facing today.  No easy fixes - and an institution that is slow to adapt - all make for what promises to be an interesting decade ahead...

 

[X-mo-1979]

How about next we move into deploying FULL reserve units to support task forces as well.

-1H will deploy as a full unit to support the next battle group.Send out the job protection notification's and release those who can't go.Thus making a stronger unit with total experience and flush the guys who just want to stay in canada for 35 years looking good in uniform.

-students? put school as a secondary priority like us reg force bums trying to work,deploy, and get a BA done (not fun).

-Start posting class B positions to get a greater job knowledge/diverse learning.

But by this point next year there will proably be a 455th reserve Soldiers united union started. ;D

 

[TCBF]

Nah, why should I play nice?  >

But on a more serious note, right now the shortage of pers at key ranks means career managers don't have the luxury of posting people to "R&R" postings; instead, they work to fill the Pri 1 and pri 2 positions.  Anything else that gets filled is just gravy.  In certain corps, the Reg F is filling less than 40% of positions in support of Reserve units - they just don't have the people to do fill positions.

We are years away from getting to the new normal in personnel; the lack of Reg F recruiting in the 90s has lead to the shortfalls in mid-level leadership the Reg F is facing today.  No easy fixes - and an institution that is slow to adapt - all make for what promises to be an interesting decade ahead...

- - You got that right. Lack of recruiting plus the Somalia debacle plus disbanding the Cdn AB Regt gave the youth of Canada the impression that the government of the day did not view the military in a favourable light.  Now, who wants to join an institution in decline? Nobody.

Problem 2: FRP convinced many INSIDE the CF that perhaps it was time for a change, so they started to leave.  And leave.  And leave.  Soon 90,000 was down to 45,000.  Or less.  And when we cut a hierarchy by 50%, we loose 75% of our experience.

No wonder nobody knows how do do anything anymore.

And don't ever mention the mythical 4CMBG as a place that clicked.  Nope. That would peg you as a "man of the past"!

 

[combat_medic]

There are about a thousand questions that would need to be answered before any consideration of job protection and equal pay can be considered.

1. Does job protection = mandatory deployments?
2. Would there be protection for reservists whose employers manage to fire them anyway (as happens all the time in the US)?
3. Would it be illegal to discriminate for hiring based on CF employment? Would that legislation be enforced?
4. Would reservists be less likely to disclose service to potential employers?
5. Would more equal pay = mandatory deployments?
6. Would it mean less class B positions?
7. Would units have to reduce strength because of the the increase in pay?
8. Would Reg Force recruiting suffer? (how many reservists on long term Cl B end up going reg because of the additional money?)
9. Would Res promotions be put in line with the Reg?
10. Would other Res benefits suffer as a result of paying 15% more? (RFRG, pension, education, dental, etc.)


A lot of American reservists have mentioned how job protection has done them little good. Many lost their jobs after a 2-year stint in Iraq because their employers let them go because of cutbacks, restructuring, or some other reason. While they weren't officially let go because of their service, the employers just managed to find obvious loopholes to replace them while they were away. The US military also uses job protection as the justification for mandatory deployments for reserve and national guard personnel.

While I would certainly like to see job protection that is equitable and fair, and allows me to choose when I want to go on course/task/deployment, and would love to see a 15% pay raise, I'm hesitant to jump on board with this one. After all, the money has to come out of somewhere. What are reservists willing to risk in order to get that extra pay? I doubt very much that the Federal Government is sitting on millions of extra dollars that they want to earmark to pay the reserves more. Especially in the current political climate when the government is being criticized for their increased spending on the Afghanistan mission, I doubt they, or the voting public will see this expenditure as a priority.

 

[geo]

- But those positions should not be sacred.  He may have a three year contract, buy if I need that posting for one of my people, the Career Manager should be able to de-list it as a Reserve vacancy and post in a Regular - before three years.

The position should not be sacred - agreed BUT, if you start punting someone out of a Class B with only 30 days notice you'll see just how hard it is to get someone to apply for another class B sometime later.  «if the reservist has committed himself to 3 years, then he is employable (and deployable IMHO)

 

[Pikache]

This has potential to turn into another Regs vs Res flame war and I'm frankly sick of those threads.

Let's keep the debate professional

-Army.ca Staff

 

[54/102 CEF]

Just me talking here ---- I believe what is keeping this shell game going is the same thing that I posted on the Janis Stein / Eugene Lang book in PATH TO WAR last week - Bone headed ignorance of defence and strategic issues by our political leadership. Its easier to tax and spend internal to Canada than it is to get a feel for the world.

Cdn politicians are behind the rest of NATO in how to deploy a force - witness repeated "We were never told this or that statements from ex - cabinet ministers" ref the Cdn deployments - That CDS sure is a shyster - early in early out - Wooo! Afghanistan is getting Iraquized (Bill Graham on the use of IEDs)

If the policy makers - i.e. Government are out in left field looking for a game they can play (liberals on Defence) then who's to say the incoming team has any better idea - true there are some major big ticket items in the purchasing pipeline - but all the stuff - can’t deploy without a human filled team across the entire defence spectrum

Now we see "We need help in Khandahar" True or not - it is what we hear from all levels. You might say just mobilise the reserves - an example at the link http://www.coxwashington.com/hp/content/reporters/stories/2008/02/01/GUARD_GA01_COX.html suggests that’s easier done than said - i.e. - a US Reserve force designed for the Cold War to MAYBE deploy and then be continually deployed leads to a non realisation of Strategic goals - i.e.: what if we deploy and deploy and deploy and its still not enough?

So we have a reserve augmented force deployed - that needs down time - but the large majority of the reserves don’t seem to be under any orders to do anything -----------> This is a mismatch of ends and means ------ if you can’t tap them why do you have them? Same goes for all the regulars who are not in battle group or combatant trades. Then you have a case of a demographic imbalance in the reg forces where 65% are over 35 and 35% are under 35 – old forces don’t fight forever. (This percentage was in the CF pers newsletter about 3-4 years back).

At the same time, the regular forces can deploy so many times on the 6 months overseas cycle before the in service troops say screw this - I am gone.

That is because it’s not a War accompanied by wartime rules such as holding onto people in deployment critical skills until NATO or whatever higher level political organisation figures out what to do where we are deployed.

So - the decades long political wisdom to under fund the forces (not the under recruiting) has come back to hit the government - the fixed ceiling reg force isn’t big enough to handle a Khandahar Mission alone - the reserves can augment it for a while - but sooner or later the bottom is reached (NATO has to help with troops)

Grenades with Pins in will be accepted - flamethrowers will get Strategic UAV generated metallic email.

 

[54/102 CEF]

This has potential to turn into another Regs vs Res flame war and I'm frankly sick of those threads.

Let's keep the debate professional

-Army.ca Staff

The trouble starts at the political level - regs and reserves are doing way more than there share to keep things going.

 

[Shamrock]

We need a flexible system where the career manager gets to decide if a position is Class B or not.  That way, he could take a Regular or Reservist who has just came back from a bad tour and give him a year with the 4th Bn Foreskin Fusileers, or whatever.  The B occupying that position can slide into a tasking elsewhere or be made redundant.

I don't know where I stand on this.  I think having these positions available to regular and reserve soldiers could be a good idea; however, if a reservist is already filling the position and it seems unfair to bump one soldier in favor of another simply because of component precedence/priority.  That said, if the reservist has already committed himself to 3 years of full-time military service, and he's fighting trim... why not deploy him in the place of a worn-out counterpart who can take up the cozy Cl. B position?  The other down side is the cost to post or task regular soldiers to the various locations.  Cl B reservists are not entitled to a posting regardless of the job's location whereas his reg counterpart would be (under certain circumstances, I realize).

Finally, the reserves aren't the only component with deadbeats.  How often has it been heard that some bloated tick can't go on tour because his taxes are due or he can't be posted to Wainwright because Edmonton is the only place that sells his favourite brand of dogfood?  

 

[Haggis]

There are about a thousand questions that would need to be answered before any consideration of job protection and equal pay can be considered.

OK, I'll take a stab at this:

1. Does job protection = mandatory deployments?  I don't think we're there yet.  Reg F are meeting thier recruiting numbers and attrition is slowing.  However, this could eventually be the case if, for example, we were to commit somewhere else while still in Kandahar. As TCBF and dapaterson discussed, the CF manning problem is at the mid level, where emplyment protection will have greatest effect.
2. Would there be protection for reservists whose employers manage to fire them anyway (as happens all the time in the US)?   Canadian employers wil quickly learn how to circumvent the legislation.  Liklely we will have no recourse against them.
3. Would it be illegal to discriminate for hiring based on CF employment? Would that legislation be enforced?   The Canadian Human Rights Act would have to be amended and that's not likely.  Joining the Reserves is a CHOICE.  Being born a black female isn't.
4. Would reservists be less likely to disclose service to potential employers? Likely, but this could open them up to dismissal for cause (non disclosure of information which could prejudice employability).
5. Would more equal pay = mandatory deployments? See question 1.
6. Would it mean less class B positions? Under the current construct, equal pay would essentially mean Class C for everyone, thereby eliminating Class B Terms of Service.
7. Would units have to reduce strength because of the the increase in pay? Unless such an icreasee in pay was accompanied by an increase in unit SWE (funding) then, yes.
8. Would Reg Force recruiting suffer? (how many reservists on long term Cl B end up going reg because of the additional money?) Possibly, as the financial incentives of CT would be eliminated.  However, the career/employment/mobility opportunities of the Reg F would remain.
9. Would Res promotions be put in line with the Reg?  Shouldn't happen until the training delta is closed.
10. Would other Res benefits suffer as a result of paying 15% more? (RFRG, pension, education, dental, etc.)  Res F benefits are pretty good now.  RFRG may have to disappear but the rest should/could remain as is.

 

[Panzer Grenadier]

I'm a reservist, I'm getting my paperwork going for TF 1-10, and I don't think I'm a deadbeat.  There are some I'm aware off, few though, which is good.  I would honestly like to have one of those cozy 3 year cl B's.  If a reg force counterpart, back from his 3rd tour and is worn out, bumps me from that 3 year cl b that's fine.  My caveat is that I get deployed overseas for whatever number of months the standard length tour is at the moment (once I get all my kit together and dagged green) and upon my return I finish what (if any) length of time was left on that 3 yr cl b. 

Its a fools dream, but what a dream it is.

 

[Reccesoldier]

If it isn't broke...

To me, as a reservist, this sounds like a whole lot of bitching in which people have either not thought it through or expect to have their cake and eat it too.  Tell them they'll be deployed or released because of universality of service and they'll shut up right quick.

 

[IntlBr]

The CIC is part of the ResF.  Should they be getting RegF Captain's pay too?

 

[Panzer Grenadier]

The CIC is part of the ResF.  Should they be getting RegF Captain's pay too?

Interesting point.

 

[Nfld Sapper]

The CIC is part of the ResF.  Should they be getting RegF Captain's pay too?

Different kettle of fish.

 

[Haggis]

The CIC is part of the ResF.  Should they be getting RegF Captain's pay too?

Don't start.

 

[IntlBr]

Not a different kettle of fish, and I'm not starting anything.  It is a legitimate comment, and question.

The CIC is part of the ResF.  They would be included in any acts amending the ResF pay structure.