Not the CEO. OK, enough pedantry for today

IBM with 27,000 UK employees is fairly conspicuous by it's absence. I wonder if everyone is scared of their very well paid lawyers?

IANAL, but I was under the impression that UK emplyers were legally obliged to give people in the TA time off for training and in the even of being called-up so I would assume the reservist of other defence arms are the same.

Funny thing down under , previous governments had this law that would protect the status of all Voluntary reservists , called up to full time Military duty in overseas postings(one batch of such reservists is an Australian Army Commando unit currently doing it's bit in Afghanistan) !

Now strangely down under in OZ , mysterious moves are afoot to remove the protected employee status ,as it is basically incompatible with Little Johnny Howard's new crap "Work Place Relations Act" which replaced the old fairer uniform Arbitration Award System started early last century!

Alas , sadly the Australian Military Forces very heavy foreign commitments of manpower , under Little Johnny Howard's overseas territorial expansion regime(Solomons(timber) , East Timor(gas) and supporting Yankee imperialists in Iraq(oil) and Afghanistan(gas) ), would cease to be functional if it was not for the Volunteer Reserves filling the many holes within the current ranks!

Very strange indeed ,whilst the Pommy's are traveling the old route that Oz was once on , down in Oz they are following the "Stars and Stripes" all the way to treat the military reservist's as expendable in every sense of the word!

What price patriotism indeed?

UK law does give reserve forces protection - but don't bank on it!

It is one thing to have a law, it is quite another for it to be enforced. If you work for BT and your are deployed to Iraq or elsewhere, you are lucky as BT is one of the best supportive employers.

During the operation in Iraq many young guys and girls came back to find that their jobs have be 're-allocated' or had disappeared in during 'restructuring' and there is nothing that anyone can do about it.

"We continue to pay them and they get full Army pay and allowances for being abroad," says Bland.

Well not me. When I was mobilised in 2006, I and several BT colleagues, were made to sever all links with BT. Pay, pension, and company share schemes all ceased. As did employee benefits (cheaper broadband for example).

Mr. Bland must have been misquoted, (should I ask for back-pay?) or has misunderstood BT policy.