The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2021

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2021 69 “Commemoration/Tribute” category for the November 2019 focus on the fall of the BerlinWall and a bronze in the “Monthly Professional Society” category for its May 2019 focus, “Professional Diplomats: Leadership and Lessons,” which featured an interview with Ambassador (ret.) William Burns. AFSA’s bestselling third edition of Inside a U.S. Embassy , now in its eighth printing, is still selling w ell at its tenth anniversary in April 2021. It has been adopted for more than 70 university courses and is available in more than 1,200 libraries worldwide. During just the first quar- ter of 2021, close to 1,000 books were sold, generating approximately $10,000 in revenue, which goes to support the Fund for American Diplomacy. State T omYazdgerdi served as AFSA’s State VP for this board term. Soon after the board was inaugurated, the State LM Office completed work on our new office space in the Harry S Truman Building. This new space provides several private offices so that members can comfortably discuss matters in confidentiality. In March 2020, the Foreign Ser- vice Grievance Board dismissed, on jurisdictional and other grounds, the Presidential Rank Award dispute AFSA filed after the department failed to make PRA recommendations to the president for Fiscal Years 2014-2017. Even though the case was dismissed, we believe our dispute pushed the department to resume making PRA recommendations and to complete long overdue updates to the Foreign Affairs Manual and associated Handbooks. During the pandemic, we successfully pushed the department to onboard Foreign Service orientation classes virtually, to extend the period that free temporary park- ing was available at the HST Building, and—perhaps most importantly—to provide 20 hours of administrative leave per pay period to employees to care for dependents and for other health and safety reasons related to COVID-19. AFSA has engaged extensively with many employee affinity groups and employee organizations. We met with members of the Thursday Luncheon Group to discuss shared priorities for the upcoming year concerning diver- sity and inclusion initiatives. AFSA met with the Asian American Foreign Affairs Association to discuss specific incidents of harassment of Asian American employees in the department, as well as a new appeals mechanism for, and alternatives to, assignment restrictions. We sent a letter to the State Department supporting the request of glifaa to establish a working group to address challenges faced by LGBTQ+ employees. With the input of Balancing Act, we have encour- aged the department to allow posts more flexibilities on return to/or curtailment from post to mitigate family separations caused by the pandemic. We worked closely with the Special Needs Educa- tion Allowance stakeholders group to push MED to complete revisions to the 16 FAM, which will include the first-ever SNEA appeals mecha- nism. As of this writing, AFSA and the depart- ment are at an impasse in regard to a second-level appeal and the composition of the appeals panel. AFSA is pushing for codification in the FAM that a non-MED individual with the requisite exper- tise in educational disabilities must be a permanent vot- ing member of the appeal panel. If we cannot resolve our differences via mediation, the Foreign Service Impasse Disputes Panel will have to resolve the matter. AFSA joined Balancing Act and many others in a joint letter urging the department to continue to ask Congress and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to establish paid parental leave that applies uniformly to birth, nonbirth and adoptive parents. We were thrilled that Congress finally passed this much-needed legisla- tion. AFSA continues to provide support to members of the Cuba/China health incidents cohort and worked with Congress to successfully expand coverage for gaps in medical insurance for affected employees from other foreign affairs agencies, i.e., outside of the State Labor Management moved to new offices in Main State in Washington, D.C., in 2019. This new space provides several private offices so that members can comfortably discuss matters with confidentiality. AFSA TERM REPORT