The Foreign Service Journal, March 2013

48 MARCH 2013 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 2012 AFSA ANNUAL REPORT AFSA NEWS USAID VP: Helping Even More Members BY USAID VP FRANCISCO ZAMORA The recently completed Development Leadership Initiative brought in more than 800 new Foreign Service officers, most of whom joined AFSA. As a result, our office has seen a signifi- cant increase in the pace and volume of requests for services and assistance, both here and in the field. While a great amount of our time is spent on negotiating policy, program and organizational issues, we also became closely involved in personal, one-on-one assistance to our new and old members. A sampling of our successes in 2012 follows: • At our behest, USAID overturned an African post’s unfair demand that FSOs accept personal liability for auto accidents ocurring during in-country car trips lasting more than 10 hours. • We helped a member receive Virtual Separate Maintenance Allowance, which had been unfairly denied. • Through our intervention with USAID’s Office of Human Resources, a member was allowed to ship all of his personal effects, including his car, back to his home of record when he had to leave post on compassionate travel. • In monitoring the evaluation and promotion process, we discovered that the line drawing exercise could include several more promotions due to special circumstances. • Some financial institutions, mortgage lenders, tax authori- ties and state and local governments are interpreting post mailing addresses as evidence that the employee is not a resident of the U.S. Several employees have experienced this situation, which required us to provide certification of their residency status to resolve the problem. • In one case, we overturned the agency’s previous denial of eligibility for a recruitment incentive payment worth several thousand dollars; helped another member to find a missing federal student loan check; and established that another member’s service computation date of employment was incorrect. n The AFSA member meetings in April, May, June, July and October set the agenda for much of the last year, with frustra- tion over the current promotion system a constant theme. FAS has been shrinking the Senior Foreign Service and FS-01 ranks in recent years and using upward stretches to fill numer- ous positions overseas, fueling this discontent. There was improvement in 2012 as more officers were promoted than in previous years, but we still have a long way to go to ensure that staffing decisions are based on a long-term assessment of personnel needs, rather than short-term fiscal concerns. FAS will continue to be under budget pressure, so we have an obligation to make the agency run better, which includes treating its employees to the highest standards possible. In 2012, we clarified gray areas in the rules on time-in-class and time-in-service extensions for service in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, and agreed to open the Foreign Service recruitment process to a wider range of applicants to ensure that the agency can continue to bring in the highest-quality officers possible. Late in the year, the Promotions Precepts Working Group started a review of the AFSA contract provisions covering career advancement, so we expect to make progress on this and other facets of the process during 2013. The FAS Foreign Service faces issues that affect all FS employees. Despite the bad reputation of the much-maligned Partnership Councils of the 1990s, the latest incarnation— now labeled the Labor Management Forum—is actively press- ing for a better work environment. FAS was ranked just 282nd out of 292 agencies in the 2012 ranking of “Best Places to Work in the Federal Government,” leaving room to improve. I am particularly concerned that more than half the employees surveyed felt that the leadership did not generate high levels of motivation and commitment in the work force. I am pushing for significant improvement in 2013. n FAS VP: Progress, But Still a Lot to Do BY FAS VP DAVID MERGEN