The Foreign Service Journal, January-February 2023

30 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2023 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL ☑ Assisted tens of thousands of members over the decades with grievances, investigations, discipline proposals, security clearance suspensions, and Equal Employment Opportunity complaints, as well as assignment, leave, medical, and other issues. ☑ Blocked repeated State Department attempts over many years to assign Civil Service (CS) employees to career- enhancing Foreign Service (FS) positions overseas, ignoring the Foreign Service Act of 1980 requirement that FS jobs normally be filled by FS employees. For example, secured a ruling that the department violated a negotiated collective bargaining agreement by assigning a CS employee as a deputy chief of mission. Secured limits on the department’s CS excursion program after it violated an agreement with AFSA by assigning CS employee to an Iran watcher position in London. ☑ Won or settled multiple cohort grievances over the decades on behalf of groups of FS members. For example, AFSA won a dispute over the way the Foreign Agricultural Service assigned two CS employees to overseas positions, persuaded the Foreign Commercial Service to permit employees to attend the Foreign Service Institute Job Search/Transition Program, settled a dispute with USAID over Foreign Service Limited employee assignments, secured payment of locality pay to employees attending training, won retroactive Meritorious Step Increases for more than 1,000 State Department employees, won a dispute regarding eligibility for Senior Foreign Service performance pay, and won deserved overtime pay for 49 Diplomatic Security (DS) agents. ☑ Worked during the 1990s to end discrimination in FS agencies based on sexual orientation by providing legal support to lesbian and gay members who were being targeted by DS, and worked with the employee group glifaa to expand benefits for same-sex partners. ☑ Filed amicus curia briefs in court successfully arguing that the Secretary of State may not reverse a Foreign Service Grievance Board decision overturning an employee’s separation for cause and, in a separate case, that a consul general was acting within the scope of his employment when he was involved in a car accident overseas and thus may not be sued in civil court in the United States. ☑ Blocked State Department attempts over many years to amend the Foreign Service Act of 1980 to put employees with suspended security clearances in a leave-without-pay status, which could potentially last for years due to the slow process of restoring security clearances. ☑ Convinced the State Department not to repeal the annuity exception that allows FS-2s and below who TIC (time- in-class) out before becoming eligible for an immediate annuity to continue working until they are eligible. ☑ Assisted a dozen members in being found “not liable” after they were charged with security violations when the State Department retroactively classified emails sent from then–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private server. ☑ Represented hundreds of members in FBI and DS interviews and before subcommittees of Congress (including those investigating issuance of visas to 9/11 hijackers and the first Trump impeachment) and Accountability Review Boards (including for Cuba Anomalous Health Incidents, Benghazi, and the Nasar Square incident in Iraq). ☑ Pressed the State Department to create a process for employees to appeal assignment restrictions, and later secured legislation requiring the State Department to create an independent panel (outside DS) to decide assignment restriction appeal cases. ☑ Helped secure family-friendly reforms to the Special Needs Educational Allowance program. ☑ Negotiated procedural protections following the State Department’s decision to allow DS to record subject and witness interviews without the requirement to get the consent of the employees. ☑ Convinced the State Department during the pandemic to offer administrative leave for COVID-related purposes and to bring on new hires remotely instead of freezing all FS hiring. AFSA Labor Management Achievements