The Foreign Service Journal, March 2007

American Foreign Service Association • March 2007 AFSA NEWS 2006 brought an across-the-board deterioration in theworking environment of theForeignService. Budget copingmea- sures were in place across agencies, hiring was limited to attrition, program funding was stagnant, and morale reeled. The demand forpersonnel to serve inwar zones continued torise, asdid the relentless search for volunteers to serve in them and at all unaccompaniedposts, which exceeded 25 percent of the positions filled. The impact of the war in Iraq was felt throughout the foreign affairs agencies as managements struggled to cope with the trade-offs required. Newpolicydirectionsplacedcon- siderable stressonForeignServicepersonnel as jobs were globally repositioned and the ever-closer amalgamation of USAID and State broughtwholesale change toour for- eign assistance regime. Evidence of polit- ical influenceweighingonpersonnel issues grew. AFSA worked extremely hard to miti- gate the impact of these factors on our members andmade tangible progress in a number of areas, though we were bitterly disappointed that months andmonths of intensive effort failed to achieve our goal of eliminating the overseas pay disparity. We remain focused in 2007 on our long- term objectives of advancing the interests of our members, promoting the FS to Congress and the public, and fostering a heightened esprit-de-corps within our ranks. SOUND OVERALL CONDITION AFSA continues to operate on a fun- damentally sound financial andmember- shipbasis. Totalmembershiphas surpassed 13,500. The impact of two years of hiring only slightlyaboveattritionmeans that we likely have plateaued for a while. The association’s 27 employees continue tobe excep- tionally well-led, at both the senior anddepartment head lev- els, where longevity of tenure has provided continuity and institu- tional memory that offer many advantages and serve our mem- bers well. Financially, we have well over half-a- year’sworking requirements inreserve, and our scholarship fund’s endowment sur- passed $4.7 million. The AFSA head- quarters building is in serious needof ren- ovation, a costly proposition. An initiative begun by the previous board to explore development of our small but prime headquarters property did not reveal sig- nificant advantage, so this board initiated amajor renovation to begin this summer. BREAD-AND-BUTTER ISSUES We fought hard and made substantial progress in 2006 on our top-priority issue, overseas comparability pay, only to see near-tangible success evaporate at the last minute of the lame-duck session in Congress. The administration’s insistence that eliminationof theoverseaspaydisparity be tied to a conversion of the entire FS to an inherently politically controversial “pay for performance” personnel systemgreat- ly complicated our task, which will now become even more difficult with the shift in control of Congress this year. Wewere able to achieve a small but important leg- islative victory by getting the education allowance expanded, and we continue to press the StateDepartment on a variety of employee-friendlymeasures, but the difficult budget environment has meant that anything with a price tag is a tough sell. Our leg- islative priorities in 2007, in addition toOCP, will be enhanc- ing the “death gratuity” to elim- inate the bias against specialists andmore junior employees, and to liberalize the rules on retiree WAE employment. We also continue to press management to fix the numerous problems in the security clearance sus- pension/revocation process and improve the conditions formembers of household at overseas missions. ASSIGNMENT SYSTEM CHALLENGES AFSA’s aggressive defense of the indi- vidual members and the FS overall led to significant accomplishments in the area of assignments. We have succeeded so far in walking the fine linebetweenallowingnon- FSpersonnel to fill vacancies forwhich there isnoFS employee available—a fairly com- monoccurrence given the ongoing imbal- ancebetweenpeople andpositions system- wide, and the huge and still growing demand for volunteers forunaccompanied and war-zone service—and allowing the politicization of our ranks. The threat of directed assignments continues to hang over our heads, but skillful use of our influ- ence has helped avoid that so far, though the overall shortage of personnel remains a serious problem. We also initiated an exceptional action to reverse an egregious case of assignment abuse, an initiative that wenot onlywonon itsmerits butwere able to institutionalize into changes in the over- all system. AFSA Defends the Foreign Service During Hard Times Annual Repor t 2006 J. Anthony Holmes MA R CH 2 0 0 7 / F OR E I GN S E R V I C E J OU R N A L 67