MOU (502 KB)
--> http://www.afsa.org/fcs/062207AFSAnetFCS.pdf

As Vice President of AFSA, I have waited a long time to make this announcement to all of you in FCS. It took about 18 months until Director General Israel Hernandez and I finally signed an MOU resolving two of our Fall 2005 midterm proposals.

Our first proposal (as described still on the AFSA website) concerned negotiating new and clearer rules for the Time-in-Class policy for mandatory retirement as posted on the OurPlace Intranet, especially sections 7 and 8 (which will now need to be revised by management). The previous policy, especially as applied to FS-1s who had opened their window for promotion into the Senior Foreign Service (SFS) and thereby created a 10-year TIC “limit”, was confusing and unclear with respect to how this TIC limit related to the single-class TIC and the Total Time in Service (TIS). The basic reason was that OFSHR seemed to interpret the section 8 “exceptions” to TIC time as applying only to the TIC and not to the TIC limit, so that officers would have their TIC date extended but if it was longer than their TIC limit would be mandatorily retired at the sooner of the two dates regardless of the exceptions (e.g., long-term language training). The MOU and new policy provides that the exceptions will apply to the TIC, the TIC limit and the TIS simultaneously, which will also simplify greatly the programming of eMenu software to provide accurate TIC dates to officers electronically (remains to be implemented). The MOU and new policy also removed certain ambiguities concerning TIC exceptions for the AFSA VP and Rep, integrates those with the section 8 exceptions (which remain to be so revised), and indeed call for the AFSA VP and Rep to close their window if they still wish the AFSA TIC exception or, alternatively, leave it open and forego the exception.

Our second proposal concerned the fact that under previous policy (posted in our MOU of June 1, 2005 and elsewhere on OurPlace) an officer had to be tested only at FSI to get language incentive pay, even if that officer had been trained at a non-FSI facility like DLS. Further, the old policy discriminated between language testing for assignment (which accepted DLS and possibly other FSI facilities as OK to assess S and R proficiency levels under the Federal Interagency Language Roundtable Proficiency Scale) and language testing for incentive pay, even if DLS was using the ILR testing methods and standards. The MOU and new policy now allow officers to be tested at DLS if they were trained at DLS or if they were trained at FSI previously, but not if they were just recently trained at FSI. In the latter case, they must still be tested at FSI, as indicated in the MOU.

The MOU is posted on the AFSA website and available for your reading. Please direct any comments or questions to <Donald.Businger@mail.doc.gov>.

Two final comments. First, it is interesting that Commerce management was quote “concerned about the MOU infringing upon management’s right ... because it requires the Agency to change its Time-in-Class policy” unquote. Taken literally, this could be taken to imply that AFSA has no negotiating rights under the Collective Bargaining Agreement with respect to this management right or any other for that matter. We trust this is not what was intended, and that this management statement simply reasserts management’s right to retain employees as stated. Implicitly, it is also recognition by Commerce management that FCS AFSA succeeded in making a significant change in a sensitive area, so we’ll take that as a compliment!

Second, our third proposal, which was to renegotiate slightly the precepts for eligibility for promotion into the SFS based on positions and skills with such radical notions that serving as a DCM or a Consul General rather than just as an SCO might qualify, was never seriously entertained by management. As we noted in our description on the AFSA website, the current policy that an FS-1 has to serve in any SCO assignment in any country no matter how small in budget or personnel or significant in our ITA and USFCS mission appears to tilt officers away from important (in every sense including the skills for SFS sought in the precepts) senior positions in HQ, in ODO, and in large OIO posts as DSCO. AFSA believes - and continues to believe -- this situation serves neither the needs of the service nor the needs of our officers, but also believes that management will not revisit this issue without pressure from the officer corps.