The Foreign Service Journal, March 2003

V.P. VOICE: FCS BY PETER FREDERICK Grievances and Professionalism A s reported inmyDecember 2002 e-mail update, AFSA withdrew the unfair labor practice charge of failure to negotiate in good faithon the issue of grievance adju- dication in return for FCS’s agreement to provide data and negotiate the grievance adjudicationprocedure. The Foreign ServiceGrievance Board also announcedduringNovember andDecember twodecisions, both in support of the Foreign Commercial Service officerswhohad appealedFCS’s denial of their grievances. Based on this information, I can report that since AFSA began representation of FCSOs, we have filed 34 grievances against FCS on behalf of FCSOs, 70 percent of whichwere denied by the FCS grievance staff. In 15 percent of the cases, the FCS staff granted the requested relief, and in 15 per- cent it granted partial relief. During the same time period, 23 grievances were appealed to the FSGB, of which 26 per- cent were settled before a decision was reached, 30 percent were granted full or partial relief, and in45percent of the cases the FSGB upheld FCS’s denial. This information affectsAFSAon two fronts: as a union and as a professional association. The fact that over half of the grievances deniedby FCS are upheld at the FSGB level indicates that our officersmay not be given a fair hearing on the agency level. As a result of theUnfair Labor Practice we began negotiations of the grievance adjudication process in late January. Since our officers have been granted relief in68 percent of the filings, one can assumeAFSA is doing a good job of grievance counseling, although, of course, some of the people had outside lawyers and some probably represented themselves. Of perhaps greater concern is how these statistics reflect on the professionalism of our Service. Evaluation-based grievances are unique in that the grievant and the evaluating officer are both FCSOs and potentially AFSAmembers. Over 80 percent of the grievances related to EERs. Well-prepared EERs can be a good management tool and a benefit to one’s career. EERs that are grievable do nothing to promote the professionalism of our Service. If AFSA takes its role as a professional association seriously, it should provide in- depth counseling to the rating officers in FCS, and FCS should welcome the input! Because of the size of the Service and the average time it takes to become a manag- er, the average State FSmember probably receives sixor sevenEERs before being asked to prepare one on another officer. Thus, the evaluating officer has some experience on which to draw when preparing an EER. An FCSO could be asked to prepare an EER as soon as he/she is tenured. I have supervised FCSOs for over 18 of my 20 years in the Service, writing liter- ally hundreds of evaluations and/or reviewing statements. I do not recall receiving any training or advice (other than a list of inadmissible comments). If management truly wants to join AFSA in raising the level of professionalism in our Service, man- agement should work with us to develop a detailed training program to help super- visors prepare clear, accurate, career-enhancing evaluations. With training, supervi- sors would be better able to write effective EERs, including documented construc- tive criticism, without needing to fear the grievance process. ▫ MARCH 2003 • AFSA NEWS 13 Congratulations to the Sinclaire Winners AFSA would like to congratulate the winners of the 2002 Matilda W. Sinclaire Awards for achievement in the study of hard languages and their associated cultures. Each of the nine winners below will receive $1,000 and a certificate of recognition. Brian Shott Albanian Mark A. Pekala Estonian Sandra Kaiser Greek John Stepanchuk Greek Henry Haggard Korean Mark Draper Latvian Jonathan Floss Lithuanian William Davnie Lithuanian William Mozdzierz Polish All candidates for this award are nominated for outstanding accomplishments in the course of language study by the language- training supervisors at the School of Language Studies of the Foreign Service Institute. This language award program was estab- lished by a bequest from former Foreign Service officer Matilda Sinclaire to the American Foreign Service Association in 1982. The purpose of her $175,000 bequest was to “promote and reward superior achievement by career officers of the Foreign Service of the United States while studying one of the ‘hard’ languages under the auspices of the Foreign Service Institute of the Department of State.” The guidelines were amended in October 2001 to expand eligibility for the awards to any career and career-conditional member of the Foreign Service from the Department of State, USAID, FCS, FAS or IBB. Sinclaire lan- guages are those that have proven relatively difficult for native English speakers to learn and that normally require eight months or more of intensive study. The first awards, of $1,000 each, were given out in 1985 to seven individuals who distin- guished themselves in the study of Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, Thai, and Turkish. (Note: FSO John Stepanchuk, one of the original win- ners for his achievement in Turkish, is also one of the 2002 award winners for Greek. He has also achieved superior linguistic scores in Russian, Ukrainian, and Lithuanian.) Over $146,000 has been awarded to Foreign Service members who have received recogni- tion for their superior language skills through this program. Briefs • Continued on page 14 AFSA NEWS BRIEFS Continued from page 10 Our officers have been granted relief in 68 percent of the filings. JOSH