WASHINGTON — Some veterans coming home from military duty say they are getting a cold reception when they return to work.

About 1,300 National Guardsmen and reservists filed complaints with the U.S. Department of Labor in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, saying they suffered discrimination at work when they returned to their regular jobs after their tours of duty, government officials said. It couldn’t be learned whether any were returning from Iraq. The number of complaints is up from 900 complaints in 2001.

Concerned about the rise in complaints, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao has released a televised public service announcement reminding employers that they must reinstate workers called to military duty. "They did their job — now let’s do ours," Chao says in the advertisement.

Under a 1994 law, it is illegal to discriminate against soldiers mobilized for duty. Returning soldiers are supposed to be allowed to return to their same, or a comparable job, complete with any pay raises or promotions they might have otherwise received if they had remained at work.

The United States has become increasingly reliant on guard and reserve forces, which now make up about half of the soldiers in Iraq. Since Sept. 11, 2001, 306,000 reserve and guardsmen have been mobilized, including about 163,000 now on active duty.

For the most part, employers across the country have been generous in dealing with their guard and reserve employees, officials said. Hundreds of firms have begun making up the pay difference between their military and civilian pay, according to Employer Support for Guard and Reserves, and many offer health benefits as well.

In about a third of the cases filed in the past year, soldiers said they missed out on jobs and promotions as a result of their mobilization, and about 20 percent said they weren’t reinstated in their old jobs. The rest of the cases involve vacation, seniority and pension issues, Labor Department officials said.

The department referred 79 of the cases to the Department of Justice for possible civil prosecution. A department spokesman said it couldn’t determine whether any lawsuits have resulted from the complaints. The U.S. attorney in Denver has filed two lawsuits on behalf of guard and reserve forces in the past six months.

In a lawsuit filed in December, the government alleged that Timothy Smith, a sergeant with the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office in Colorado, was demoted and harassed at work after he was called to duty as an Army reserve in 1999, and was fired in November 2000. Smith, who is now serving in Iraq, said in an e-mail that he believes he and other veterans returning from Iraq are concerned about how they will be treated by employers.

"We are disputing that claim and there’s been no resolution," said Lt. Rodney Gehrett of the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office, who is an Army reservist himself. "We feel there’s been no wrongdoing in that case."