SB 2039 Summary

• Allows private employers to voluntarily adopt hiring and promotion policies that give preference to honorably discharged veterans.

• Extends preference eligibility to spouses of veterans with permanent service-connected disabilities who cannot work, spouses of missing in action or detained service members, and unremarried widows/widowers of veterans who died from service-connected disabilities.

• Also extends preference to unremarried widows/widowers of Armed Forces members who died in combat-related conditions.

• Specifies that veteran preferences must be applied uniformly to both hiring and promotion decisions.

• Provides that these veteran preference policies are not considered violations of state or local equal employment opportunity laws.