The Foreign Service Journal, October 2006

WALKING THE TIGHTROPE AFSA Offers Qualified Support for Assignment System Changes BY SHAWN DORMAN American Foreign Service Association • October 2006 AFSA NEWS he summer months at Foggy Bottombroughtmany changes to the Foreign Service assign- ment system. They apply to the current bidding season that began in August. The State Department is under tremendous pressure to fill up to800unac- companied positions each summer, and changeswere proposed and implemented by management to facilitate staffing these positions. AFSA understands the depart- ment’s need to fill the positions, and is working with management to ensure the best possible outcome. Both AFSA and State Department management share a strongdesire tomain- tain the present systemof staffing all posi- tions for tenuredpersonnel ona voluntary basis. AFSA recognizes the Secretary’s authority tomove todirected assignments if she chooses. Employees obviously pre- fer to have a say in where they serve, and AFSAbelieves theServicebenefits fromhav- ing people in positions they choose rather than those towhich theymay be directed. AFSA believes the best course is to work closely and constructivelywith the depart- ment to support its assignment objectives, whilepreserving anassignment systemthat lives up to the department’s publicly articulatedprioritiesof beingemployee- and family-friendly. It was with this in mind that AFSA agreed to most of the depart- ment’sproposedchanges to the assignment system announced in mid-August. Staffing Unaccompanied Positions Recent efforts by the StateDepartment toencouragebids onunaccompaniedposi- tions, especially for staffing of the Iraq Provincial ReconstructionTeams, include the expanded incentives for Iraq PRT ser- vice (State 088092, sent May 31, detailed in AFSANews July/August, p. 80), followed by the time-in-class extension for people at certain designated hardship posts and a new ban on fourth-year extensions (State 121681, sent July 25, posted at www.afsa. org/State121681.cfm ). In an Aug. 15 message titled “Foreign Service Assignments: The Future Is Now” (State133247), thedirector general laidout additional far-reaching changes, including the following: aproposal to restructure the various “seasons” of the assignment cycle to include a “pre-season” to facilitate early assignmentstounaccompaniedposts;apro- posal to tighten up and limit the use of “handshakes” (the systembywhichbureaus offer positions to selected bidders prior to the official paneling of the candidate to the job); a proposal to strengthen the role of career development officers; a proposal to require fair-share bids to be for posts with a15-percentorgreaterdifferentialandapro- posal to scale back the 6/8 rule to 5/6 (rep- resenting the maximum number of years anemployeecanserve inWashington,D.C. without/with a waiver). The DG request- ed feedback from employees, but the AFSA APPLAUDS DECISION IN SUPPORT OF CONSUL GENERAL The CG Is on Duty 24/7: Court Agrees BY SHARON PAPP, AFSA GENERAL COUNSEL A FSA is extremely pleased to inform our members that on Aug. 10, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled in favorof ForeignServiceoffi- cerDouglasKent,whowas sued inhis indi- vidual capacity in the United States as a result of a 1998 car accident that occurred while he was the consul general in Vladivostok. Kentwas representedbyattor- ney J. Michael Hannon. The accident, in which theRussiandriverof the secondvehi- cle was injured, occurred while Kent was driving home fromwork, after stopping at the gym, in his personal vehicle. The Department of Justice, with State Department concurrence, refused to cer- tify that Kent was acting within the scope of his employment when the accident occurred. The district court in California, Kent’s state of domicile, accepted the DOJ’s Inside This Issue: VP STATE: THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM...................................73 VP USAID: TO MTB OR NOT TO MTB....................................74 RETIREE Q&A: ANNUITIES ...............78 FS ELDERHOSTEL.............................79 T OC T OB E R 2 0 0 6 / F OR E I GN S E R V I C E J OU R N A L 71 Continued on page 76 Continued on page 75