Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In the wake of the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, thousands of current and former military servicemembers are undergoing a transition between their military service and their civilian employment. Congress enacted the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA) to protect the employment and reemployment rights of federal and nonfederal employees when they leave their employment to perform military or other uniformed service. Among other rights, servicemembers who meet the statutory requirements are entitled to reinstatement to the positions they would have held if they had never left their employment or to positions of like seniority, status, and pay. USERRA applies to a wide range of employers, including federal, state, and local governments as well as private-sector firms. This report focuses on federal executive agencies. Under USERRA, an employee who believes that his or her USERRA rights have been violated may file a claim with the Department of Labor's (DOL) Veterans' Employment and Training Service (VETS), which investigates and attempts to resolve the claim. If DOL's VETS cannot resolve the claim and the servicemember is a federal government employee or applicant to a federal …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Press accounts in 2009 indicated that some federal agencies had issued directives to their staff discouraging them from choosing certain locations for conferences. This was because of the perception by some that the locations were resort areas and would not be the best use of taxpayers' money. Noting that government travel for meetings, conferences, and seminars is an important source of economic activity for many communities throughout the United States, Congress asked us to review agencies' policies for selecting conference locations, in view of these concerns."