At War: Groups Say Changes to Labor Law Won't Do Enough for Veterans

Even before President Obama said last week that he would speed the pullout of American troops from Afghanistan, the Department of Labor was trying to strengthen a Vietnam-era law designed to make sure returning soldiers get jobs.

Some longtime veterans complain, though, that the wording of the law isn’t the problem. Instead, they say, the law isn’t enforced well, complaints aren’t handled promptly, and contractors are failing to adequately inform veterans about the law, as required. In many cases veterans don’t even know the law exists, they say.

The Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act, or VEVRAA, requires companies that have contracts with the federal government — nearly 110,000 at last count, including companies like commercial airlines that transport mail, consulting firms and electronics manufacturers — to actively seek out veterans when hiring, and forbids discrimination against them when filling jobs and promoting employees.

Veterans who qualify include disabled and recently discharged soldiers and soldiers who served in military campaigns and operations for which a campaign badge or an Armed Forces Service Medal was issued.

“Increasing numbers of veterans are returning from duty in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world only to face substantial obstacles in finding employment,” the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs said in a recent report explaining why it was considering strengthening the law.

Post-9/11 veterans have higher rates of unemployment than nonveterans and older veterans, according to a Congressional report issued in May. Some of that higher unemployment may be because the industries that often employed veterans shrank during the recession, the report found.

Mr. Obama said last Wednesday that he would bring 10,000 troops back to the United States this year from Afghanistan and 23,000 more by next summer.

The Department of Labor’s proposed changes include requiring contracting companies to keep better data about veterans applying for jobs and hiring rates, increasing recruitment and ramping up outreach efforts to veterans.

The government recently extended the public comment period for these changes from June 27 to July 11 and is taking comments on a federal Web site.

Some longtime veterans complain that the wording of the law isn’t the problem. Instead, they say, the law isn’t enforced well, complaints aren’t handled promptly and contractors are failing to adequately inform veterans about the law, as required. In many cases veterans don’t even know they are eligible for preferential hiring, they say.

Veterans groups have long criticized the Office of Federal Contract Compliance, the division of the Department of Labor responsible for enforcing the law. The OFCCP, as it is known, “has long had the (justified) reputation of being a moribund agency within the Department of Labor who did little, if anything, to help anyone, much less veterans,” Rick Weidman, executive director for the Vietnam Veterans of America, said in testimony before Congress last year.

The OFCCP should be more active, he said. “The message needs to get out that there are consequences to noncompliance,” he said.

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Too Many Students and Not Enough Chairs in Germany’s Universities

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

Professor Benjamin Ortmeyer teaches on the misuses of education during the Nazi era. His lecture hall is designed for 500 people, but 720 students are registered for his course and about 600 show up every week. “I couldn’t understand the students if they didn’t protest,” he said.

And protest they do, as German public universities, already overcrowded, brace for even more students. Florian Muhs, part of a student working group on overcrowding at the University of Frankfurt, says many come to him to complain.

“There are not enough professors, and the rooms are not big enough,” he said.

The group has written an open letter to the president of the university and state officials, and he says the student body might consider protests. “It’s all about getting attention, especially from people who aren’t directly affected by the situation,” Mr. Muhs said.

Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged that Germany would become a republic of education in a widely publicized speech in 2008, and her dream is quickly becoming fulfilled. Several factors are fueling the rise, including a desire for the life opportunities provided by a university education, the abolition of mandatory military service, and a reduction of one year in the high school curriculum.

But Professor Matthias Jaroch, spokesman for the German Association of Professors and Lecturers, says the government is failing to back her vision with cash, causing a crisis of overcrowding. The association demands that the state and federal governments put more money into education. “We are now working at a ratio of 60 students to one professor,” he said. “The system is no longer tenable.”

Some universities say they are trying to plan ahead by hiring more teaching staff and providing more rooms. Academics and experts agree, however, that more government money is needed to fix an outdated system that will have to accommodate a tide of students in the years to come.

About 200,000 students have been added to the university system in the past three years, an increase of about 10 percent, according to the German office of statistics. By 2020, the number of students is expected to grow an additional 300,000 students, Mr. Jaroch said.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe University has seen its student population spike to about 38,000 students, a rise of 7,000 in the past three years, Olaf Kaltenborn, a spokesman for the university, said.

Most departments have enrollments that exceed their capacity, Mr. Kaltenborn said. The department for history and philosophy, for one, is at 170 percent of capacity. The pressure is only expected to rise: the university has set up a task force to deal with the extra students arriving as German high schools eliminate the 13th year of study during the next few years. “We don’t want to be thought of as facing the storm blindly,” Mr. Kaltenborn said.

According to Ms. Eckstein, the student in Mr. Hummrich’s course, students are warned by their peers that because of overcrowding, newcomers like her will not be able to take a full course load. More senior students get preference so that they can graduate.

The first sentence out of the professor’s mouth, she said, is usually, “First semester students have to go.”

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