2006 State Department Promotion List

AFSAnet: AFSA: COMPROMISE AGREEMENT WITH DG ON THE NEW ASSIGNMENT RULES

AFSA and the Director General, after several months of negotiations, have reached a compromise agreement concerning the latest changes that the DG had proposed earlier this year for the Foreign Service assignment system at State.   By separate telegram being transmitted simultaneously, the DG gives the Department’s perception of this compromise agreement. This message explains AFSA’s point of view.

Background
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As we reported in late March (State 35671), the DG wanted to do two things that would further reorient the Foreign Service towards hardship postings and help ease the staffing crisis at the most hard-to-fill unaccompanied posts:

1. To replace the current six-year limit on consecutive domestic service with a five-year limit and to stop giving any special waiver consideration to employees whose motive for wanting to stay in Washington is to allow a teenage son or daughter to finish his/her senior year in high school;

2. To apply the new 15% Fair Share threshold (which AFSA had agreed to last year) retroactively, i.e., requiring Fair Share bids starting in the current cycle even from those employees who had served at 5% or 10% posts in recent years.

AFSA’s electronic opinion poll of active-duty State members in March/April generated nearly 2,000 responses and revealed a wide range of differing priorities within our membership on these issues. While most clearly believe, as do we at AFSA, that the Foreign Service must play a leading role in responding to the many challenges facing our country overseas - and that FS assignment rules should reflect these new realities -- there was widespread concern over the unfairness of applying new rules retroactively with no “grandfathering” of employees who had made careful, good-faith bidding decisions based on existing rules.   Many also expressed reservations about the increasingly coercive nature of the assignment rules, the loss of control over career paths, and the ever more daunting obstacles to maintaining a family in the Foreign Service as these rules have evolved.

Our survey also highlighted a growing belief that the rules should require everyone to share the burden of overseas hardship service and that no one should be exempted, including senior officers, 7th floor staffers, and well-connected insiders in certain bureaus.

Outline of Compromise
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After taking account of the survey results and the extensive and diverse feedback from our worldwide membership, the AFSA Governing Board agreed to the following compromise:

1. AFSA agreed to the DG’s proposal to change the six-year limit to a five-year limit (which had been the case until the mid-1990’s), but ONLY on the following conditions:

a. Any employee who began a series of domestic assignments in 2004 or earlier is “grandfathered” and unaffected by this change;

b. A special committee within HR/CDA will consider waiver requests for the new five-year rule;

c. The criteria spelled out in the SOP for the waiver committee instructions include the following compassionate reasons that may justify a waiver: medical issues, having a son or daughter entering the final year of high school, providing care to an elderly parent, and dealing with child custody issues;

d. The waiver criteria will include Deputy Assistant Secretaries but NOT people serving in staff positions or tandem spouses of DAS’s.

2. AFSA agreed on a gradual phase-in of the new 15% Fair Share threshold for those who accepted assignments at 5%-10% posts in recent years, which effectively “grandfathers” those employees according to the following chart:

Year Departed From   Year in which employee Transfer Cycle/
5% or 10% Post     must start bidding       Fair Share Arrival at Post
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2010            2013            2014
2009            2012            2013
2008            2012            2013
2007            2012            2013
2006            2011            2012
2005            2010            2011
2004            2009            2010
2003            2009            2010
2002            2008            2009

AFSA believes this is a fair compromise that takes account of the current realities that the Foreign Service is facing overseas but also addresses the diverse concerns of our membership. This agreement does shorten the number of years a Foreign Service member can serve domestically, but it “grandfathers” many people already serving domestically and expands the waiver criteria for those with compelling personal circumstances. It also shortens the Fair Share clock for some employees who had served at 5% and 10% posts, but it will not unfairly change anyone’s bidding status immediately. (AFSA had also tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to get the Department to agree to a “grandfathering” exception for those at posts with a 10% or lower differential who had been hurt by last year’s ban on extensions.)

It is important to remember that, if no compromise had been reached, the Department almost certainly would have brought our disagreement over the proposed assignment rule changes to the Foreign Service Impasse Disputes Panel. The rulings of this Panel, which is part of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, are unpredictable and in recent years have tended to favor management. There is the real possibility that the   Panel could have adopted the Department’s original proposal or a solution of its own, which could have been far worse than the compromise outlined above.

Finally, we urge all our members to recognize that this is an extremely difficult period in which the Foreign Service has hundreds of positions to fill in two war zones and at other unaccompanied danger-pay posts. Some tightening of the assignment rules are inevitable if we are to preserve the voluntary nature of our bidding system and avoid directed assignments.

Additional AFSA Proposals
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Recognizing that the Department’s immediate imperative is to generate enough volunteers to fill the hardship and unaccompanied posts on the 2008 assignment vacancy lists, AFSA proposed during these negotiations a
number of creative ideas, including:

a. Permit those facing separation from the Service due to TIC/TIS expiration to continue working beyond their TIC/TIS date (i.e. postponing their retirement), although no longer eligible for promotion, IF they are willing to take assignments at designated hard-to-fill overseas posts;

b. Use existing waiver authority to make it easier for WAE annuitants to take positions at unaccompanied posts while receiving their full pensions;

c. Institute an option, accompanied by strong, tangible benefits as an incentive, for people going to unaccompanied posts to sign up for two years. Options could include such things as extending the “guaranteed top-5 onward assignment” that is now available to Iraq Provincial Reconstruction Team volunteers;

d. Order an immediate doubling of the Separate Maintenance Allowance for those serving at involuntary unaccompanied posts, as well as a significant cash “signing bonus” (perhaps $20,000) for anyone willing to volunteer for those positions;

e. Review the long-term staffing pattern for Embassy Baghdad and the Iraq PRT’s with a view towards “rightsizing” those posts.

We urge the Secretary and the Director General to give serious consideration to these and other vehicles for addressing the short-term requirements of the Foreign Service without fundamentally altering our volunteer assignment system and without placing greater strains on the ability of Foreign Service members to pursue their careers while managing the needs of their families.

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