The President’s Iraq “surge” speech last week, particularly the civilian component of it and the Secretary’s testimony the following day to Congress about an increase in Provincial Reconstruction Teams, has prompted many members to write to AFSA to ask what we know and what we have been discussing with Department management about how the “surge” will affect the Foreign Service.  Simultaneously, the message sent out by HR last week announcing that regular season assignment panels will begin on January 23 for all but FS-02 generalists – the category with the greatest deficit -- has caused concerns among our membership.  

Iraq “Surge”
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Regarding the civilian component of the Iraq “surge,” senior HR officials told AFSA President Tony Holmes and State VP Steve Kashkett on January 18 that their current approach is to seek some 10 Senior Foreign Service (or FS-01) officers to head the new Provincial Reconstruction Teams that will be created in the next two months.   HR CDO’s have started sending out e-mails to SFS/FS-01’s to solicit volunteers for these PRT Team leader jobs, and apparently a number of people have expressed interest already.  At this point, we understand that the Department does not expect to need generalist FSO’s beyond these 10 and is not contemplating an expansion of the current staffing levels at the existing PRT’s.  Those positions have been on the regular bid lists for summer 2007, and the Department has been successful in attracting bidders for most of them.  

AFSA continues to urge the Department to keep Iraq staffing to a manageable, realistic level, given the size of the FS workforce, the still large structural deficit at the mid levels, and the needs of our other posts all over the world.  The Foreign Service has stepped up to the plate in Iraq over the past four years, producing willing volunteers for virtually all of the required jobs there, but many of our members do have serious concerns about the ability of ever-larger numbers of unarmed FS members to do their jobs in a worsening combat zone.  AFSA has conveyed these concerns in meetings with the DG, NEA, and the Secretary’s Senior Advisor on Iraq.  (Please see the two back-to-back State VP columns on this subject in the Foreign Service Journal’s December and January issues, which can be found at: www.afsa.org/fsj/jan07/afsanews.pdf and www.afsa.org/fsj/dec06/afsanews.pdf.)
       
Assignment Cycle
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AFSA welcomed the news that HR is prepared to start regular season assignment panels next week, but we have conveyed to the Director General the concerns of many of our members about the projected shortfall in FS-02 generalists compared to FS-02 jobs, which has resulted in the decision to hold off in making regular season assignments in that category.  This structural deficit at the FS-02 level is not the fault of our members, and it should not disadvantage them for assignments.  

HR told us on January 18 that there are still a number of summer 2007 jobs at unaccompanied and other high-differential posts that the bureaus have identified as “mission-critical” but have no bidders and that it has instructed CDOs to begin preparing lists of 3-5 qualified, currently unassigned bidders who might be viable candidates for each of these jobs.  The key question is: how many of these positions must be filled before regular season can start in earnest?  AFSA has urged the DG to remain open-minded about which positions are truly “mission-critical” – a certain vacancy rate is inevitable, especially at the FS-02 level, given the overall deficit.  HR plans to send out a list of these unbid “mission-critical” positions shortly.  The list currently includes some 40 positions across all regions, mostly at the FS-02 and FS-03 levels.   There are a number of specialist jobs on the list and less than a quarter of these positions are in Iraq.

If the DG determines that these positions are “mission-critical” but do not have qualified bidders, the Department could begin identifying people for directed assignments to them.  This measure, while extreme, does fall within the Department’s purview and legal rights.  In order to avoid this eventuality, AFSA welcomes HR’s continued efforts to consider stretch bidders, interested civil service colleagues, and WAE’s for these jobs.  We also encourage our members who may be contemplating such bids to volunteer as soon as possible.

AFSA expects to be consulted in advance before any decisions to direct assignments are made, and we hope that this consultation will include a detailed discussion of the appropriate criteria for indentifying individuals.  HR/CDA Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) B-3, which can be found on the HR/CDA website, outlines the identification procedure.  But we sincerely hope this will not prove necessary.

As we affirmed in an AFSA cable last August, AFSA continues to share the Department’s view that directing people into assignments, particularly to those located in war zones, would be detrimental to the Foreign Service on many different levels.  Avoiding this, in a world that is increasingly dominated by hardship and unaccompanied posts, will require us all to make some concessions and accept some changes that we might not otherwise prefer. 

MINIMIZE CONSIDERED

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