1. As mentioned in the June Foreign Service Journal VP Voice, both the AFSA Rep Stephen Anderson and I the VP will resign from the AFSA Board July 15 for our onward overseas assignments to Dublin and Bern as SCOs, respectively. Rebecca Balogh has been confirmed by the AFSA Board to succeed Stephen Anderson as AFSA Rep until the next election in the Spring
of 2009. No successors were available for the VP position as management consciously chose to omit the "twinned" Senior Advisor DAS/OIO position from the I-bid list for summer 2008.

2. We have several times noted that our Spring 2007 mid-term bargaining proposal included a request to discuss the so-called 7-year rule with FCS Management and seek to revise it for the good of the service and our members in an open dialogue. In clear violation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, Management failed to agree to discuss this issue or even respond formally within the prescribed period. So In December 2007 AFSA filed an institutional grievance which is now before the Foreign Service Grievance Board. The 7-year rule you will recall requires that all
repeat all FCS officers entering FCS after the 1994 register who have not already served at least one year in a U.S. Export Assistance Center (USEAC) must be assigned to a USEAC within the first 7 years of their service, and this is a signed agreement between FCS Management and AFSA
not just a Management policy.

We though it would be useful for all members to see in this AFSANET the following anonymous but true story of one FCS officer who was vitally and negatively affected by FCS Management's inconsistent application of the 7-year rule in violation of the CBA:

Uneven Enforcement of the Seven-Year Rule: One Reason for a Commercial Officer’s Resignation

I worked hard for a lot of years to achieve the distinction of being a Commercial Officer and I’m proud that I was among the ranks. There were a number of reasons I chose to leave the service. Uneven enforcement of the seven-year rule was one of them.

When I joined the CS, management made clear: I and other new officers were required to start a domestic tour within our first seven years of employment. Management and senior officers also clarified that domestic tours rarely result in promotions.

This requirement, along with several others, meant that I could not expect a promotion within the first seven to eight years of my employment. I accepted that as Uncle Sam’s invocation of the ancient rite of passage found in most organizations: pay your dues first and the rewards will follow.

And so I diligently followed the career path that was outlined for new officers at that time. My first assignment was at a hardship post with a super-hard language. I would have been happy to extend my assignment, but I did not seek that option as management made absolutely clear: first-tour officers do not get extensions. (As I eventually saw, this is another rule the service enforces unevenly, but that’s another story.) So, for my second tour I enthusiastically embraced a domestic assignment. Those two short years at a USEAC taught me a lot, the equivalent of an associate’s degree in export management and ODO/OIO relations. Of course, I was removed from any promotion potential for that time, but based on the seven-year rule, my peers were ostensibly in the same predicament.

It did not turn out that way. Another officer - who joined at the same time I did - entered the service one grade below me. He did not pursue a domestic tour. As I perceived, he actively avoided it, along with others who openly stated they would not do USEAC tours for various reasons. By keeping himself at overseas posts and avoiding the promotion blackout of the domestic field, that officer was promoted twice, going from one grade below me to one grade above me. Considering the TIC clock starts the day an officer enters service, I had unwittingly limited my longer range competitive potential by fulfilling my obligation to the seven-year rule.

I brought a lot to the service. A super-hard language in which I didn’t need training. Years of previous Commerce Department experience that allowed me to hit the ground running at full-throttle at my first post. An ability to build bridges to other agencies and bureaus, particularly ODO. (No easy task given the reputation that Commercial Officers have at a number of domestic offices.) And what I learned in the service was that following the rules meant a promotion would happen far down the road - with an increased risk of TICing out - while finding creative ways around them resulted in nearly immediate promotions.

Watching some officers skirt the rules and rise above was too much to bear. The U.S. Commercial Service has a fine mission and does a splendid job of meeting it. But for the devotion and sacrifice required, it should evenly enforce its rules. The rewards are too few and too long in coming to shortchange those who are working hard, doing their best, and taking the service at its word: that the organization is a meritocracy where rules mean something.

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