The Foreign Service Journal, March 2011

M A R C H 2 0 1 1 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 33 against those serving in Washington, D.C., and also to re- quire boards to take into account deficiencies in e-perfor- mance that could misrepresent the employee’s position within an embassy or alter the space allotted to the rater’s comments. AFSA also intervened to convince Georgetown Uni- versity that the value of overseas housing was not income and should not be considered as such in calculating finan- cial aid to applicants with FS parents. May AFSA began a full-court press to eliminate the 5-per- cent low-ranking rule. The under secretary for manage- ment lowered the quota to 2 percent, a number acceptable to AFSA as it is within what many boards had reported would be the “natural number” they would low-rank based on performance, regardless of the quota. We became aware of errors in entry-level salaries for newly hired DS special agents and similar problems in sev- eral other entry classes. AFSA worked closely with HR to identify all affected employees and ensure that their salaries were raised to appropriate levels. June After complaints from the field, AFSA urged DS to clarify its regulations regarding contact reporting of Facebook and other social networks. DS responded by urging employees to treat such contacts the same as real- life contacts for reporting purposes. We met with the Office of Civil Rights to express con- cern over a growing number of cases in which it opened an investigation based not on any complaint from an ag- grieved party, but rather on “tips” from third parties. Agreeing that there were some instances in which this might be proper, we nonetheless urged greater consider- ation of the reporting circumstances before launching an investigation. August We intervened to prevent elimination of opportunities for information management technical specialists to seek excursion tours. While the numbers allowed to do so are small, we kept the door open and continue to push to widen it for all specialists. September We successfully intervened and reversed a decision that had removed the disabled daughter of an FS member from a state-funded program when her overseas parents were deemed to be no longer state residents. October The State Department agreed to reimburse recently in- troduced fees that some airlines charge to seat families to- gether. We also convinced Volkswagen of America to eliminate penalty charges for FS members who sought to break a VW or Audi lease due to assignment overseas. December In talks with management, we raised issues related to Security Technical Specialist and OfficeManagement Spe- cialist career paths and assignments, seeking greater op- portunities for advancement. ANNUAL REPORT American Foreign Service Association 2010 FCS: Successes in a Rebuilding Year ■ B Y K EITH C URTIS , AFSA FCS VP O ur advocacy work with Secretary of Com- merce Gary Locke paid off in a strong rec- ommendation to President Barack Obama for more resources, which materialized in the National Export Initiative and the largest FCS budget increase request from the administration to Con- gress in our history. Thanks to the White House, we were fortunate to work with Suresh Kumar, a strong director general with real inter- national business experience, who has responded positively to all of our requests. He has strengthened the Office of For- eign Service Human Resources, freed our trust funds and ap- pointed a very strong deputy, retired Ambassador Chuck Ford. AFSA had advocated for a Foreign Service officer who intimately knows our issues to be named to the position, so we were delighted to see Ford’s appointment. We have worked to make funding of the NEI for the Com- mercial Service a reality. We also advanced the issue of sen- ior pay and made sure FCS was on board for locality pay, the biggest concrete benefit we have ever received. Despite ef- forts to obtain changes to the seven-year rule, we have not yet prevailed on that front, however. Our fate still hangs in the balance after all that work but, all in all, it has been a very good year for FCS.