Wash. companies to pay $60K for firing reservist

Published 2:16 pm Thursday, October 27, 2011

TACOMA — A Washington state trucking company has agreed to pay $60,000 to an Air Force reservist who was fired without cause after he returned from deployment in Afghanistan.

Dave Axtell, of University Place, worked as a driver supervisor for James J. Williams Bulk Service Transport in Kalama from 1998 until he was called into active duty in 2005. When he finished in 2009, the company took three months to rehire him and gave him an unsalaried position with longer hours. Later that year it fired him.

The U.S. Justice Department sued, saying federal law required the company to give Axtell a position comparable to his old job. The law also prohibited the company from firing him without cause for one year.

James J. Williams’ parent company, Spokane-based Trans-System Inc., and another of Trans-System’s subsidiaries are parties to the settlement, which still must be approved by a federal judge.