The Foreign Service Journal, February 2004

2 AFSA NEWS • FEBRUARY 2004 Staff: Executive Director Susan Reardon: reardon@afsa.org Business Department Controller Kalpna Srimal: srimal@afsa.org Accounting Assistant Steven Tipton: tipton@afsa.org Labor Management General Counsel Sharon Papp: papps@state.gov Labor Management Attorney Zlatana Badrich: badrichz@state.gov Labor Management Specialist James Yorke: yorkej@state.gov USAID Senior Labor Management Advisor Douglas Broome: dbroome@usaid.gov USAID Office Manager Asgeir Sigfusson: asigfusson@usaid.gov Grievance Attorneys Harry Sizer: sizerhs@state.gov, an d Charles Henderson: Hendersonch@state.gov Office Manager Christine Warren: warrenc@state.gov Member Services Director Janet Hedrick: hedrick@afsa.org Representative Lindsay Peyton: peyton@afsa.org Administrative Assistant Ana Lopez: lopez@afsa.org Outreach Programs Retiree Liaison Bonnie Brown: brown@afsa.org Director of Communications Thomas Switzer: switzer@afsa.org Congressional Affairs Director Ken Nakamura: nakamura@afsa.org Corporate Relations/Executive Assistant Austin Tracy: tracy@afsa.org Scholarship Director Lori Dec: dec@afsa.org Professional Issues Coordinator Barbara Berger: berger@afsa.org AFSA HEADQUARTERS: (202) 338-4045; Fax: (202) 338-6820 STATE DEPARTMENT AFSA OFFICE: (202) 647-8160; Fax: (202) 647-0265 USAID AFSA OFFICE: (202) 712-1941; Fax: (202) 216-3710 FCS AFSA OFFICE: (202) 482-9088; Fax: (202) 482-9087 AFSA Internet and E-mail addresses: AFSA WEB SITE: www.afsa.org AFSA E-MAIL: afsa@afsa.org AFSA NEWS: afsanews@afsa.org FSJ: journal@afsa.org PRESIDENT: limbert@afsa.org STATE VP: cranelk@state.gov RETIREE VP: jones@afsa.org USAID VP : wcarter@usaid.gov FCS VP: charles.ford@mail.doc.gov AFSA News Editor Shawn Dorman : dorman@afsa.org (202) 338-4045 x 503; Fax: (202) 338-8244 On the Web : www.afsa.org/news How to Contact Us: Governing Board: PRESIDENT: John W. Limbert STATE VICE PRESIDENT: Louise K. Crane USAID VICE PRESIDENT: Bill Carter FCS VICE PRESIDENT: Charles A. Ford FAS VICE PRESIDENT: Vacant RETIREE VICE PRESIDENT: George F. Jones SECRETARY: F.A. “Tex” Harris TREASURER: Danny Hall STATE REPRESENTATIVES: Pamela Bates, Cynthia G. Efird, Scot L. Folensbee, Raymond D. Maxwell, John C. Sullivan, Jim Wagner USAID REPRESENTATIVE: Thomas Olson FCS REPRESENTATIVE: William Crawford RETIREE REPRESENTATIVES: Gilbert Sheinbaum, David E. Reuther, Theodore S. Wilkinson, III, Stanley A. Zuckerman IBB REPRESENTATIVE: Alex Belida FAS REPRESENTATIVE: Michael Conlon T he recent law changing the way members of the Senior Executive Service and the Senior Foreign Service are com- pensatedhashighlighted the inequityof denyingWashington locality pay to those Foreign Service employees who are posted overseas. Once the new 2004 pay rates go into effect, the differ- ence betweenwhat youmake inWashington andwhat youmake overseas will be at least 14 percent and maybe even more. So, if you want to equal your Washington income, now you have to go to a 15-percent or higher hardship post. AFSA has inveighed against this financial injustice for some years. However, at the retreat for the newmembers of the AFSA Governing Board last November, the active-duty members said flatly that addressing this injusticemust be not just an AFSA pri- ority, it must be the priority. The locality pay gap grows wider each year. In the past, when AFSAhas talked to congressional committee staff on this subject, they have argued back that they don’t think those in London or Paris should get locality pay. Clearly, AFSA must adopt a new strategy to educate the Congress. We may need to take a more “in-your-face” approach. Employees inLondonandParisdon’t spend theirwhole careers there. For every London, there is anAlgiers and a Beirut. Those posted toLondon andParis could, in amonth’s time, find themselves en route to Baghdad or Kabul or Islamabad. That is, the employees could find themselves there: Their families will be relocated tosome approvedsafehaven, usuallyaWashington,D.C., suburb. The employee won’t receive Washington locality pay, because the employee isn’t in Washington. So, a portion of the employee’s non-locality paywill be allocated to support the fam- ily in a locality-pay locality. That is an absurd situation. Afederal court recentlyawardedcom- pensation to some of the victims of the Beirut bombing and their survivors. I read every plaintiff’s deposition and found those from the widows especially plaintive. One widow wrote of the difficulty of finding employment. She knew she couldn’t raise her family on what the Federal Employees CompensationAct provided; she had to go towork. Being over- seas, shehadn’t developed thosenetworks employment counselors say are so important to finding a job. Listen up, Congress! The Foreign Service is a one-career sys- tem in a dual-career world. In seven out of 10 U.S.-based fami- lies with children, both parents work. If a Foreign Service spouse can’t workbecause the employee is overseas, then the spouse isn’t earning any Social Security benefits and isn’t putting anymoney intoan IRAor a 401(k). Meanwhile, because theoverseas employ- ee is denied locality pay, less is being paid into Social Security and less is being contributed to the Thrift Savings Plan. This means overseas assignments don’t just disadvantage FS families finan- cially in the short run; they disadvantage them long into retire- ment. I recently talked with Human Resources Staff at the Central Intelligence Agency. CIA pays all employees at the same grade the same salary, whether or not they are posted abroad. I asked oneCIAofficial what the rationalewas behind this. She said, “We did not want to provide any incentive for employees not to go overseas.” Hear that, Congress? ▫ V.P. VOICE: STATE BY LOUISE CRANE Listen Up, Congress!