The Foreign Service Journal, December 2014

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | DECEMBER 2014 43 AFSA NEWS AFSA is a union as well as a professional association, a hybrid that requires special considerations. Each AFSA agency constituency, regard- less of size, must be allotted at least one vote on the board. Most of the Board’s growth has occurred in the last two years. The Foreign Service, primarily at State and USAID, grew extraordinarily in the first decade of the 21st cen- tury due to the large hiring increases associated with the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative, Diplomacy 3.0 and the Development Leader- ship Initiative (see graph above). These large personnel increases have ended and are not likely to resume in the current budget climate. Meanwhile, AFSA also began representing Foreign Service employees at APHIS, which resulted in an additional seat on the Governing Board. Because elected ožcials have a duty to represent their members’ interests, each Continued on page 54 agency must have at least one representa- tive on the Board. Proposal to Rightsize A new Governing Board is proposed with 19 positions. This would bring the board back in line with historic averages while still allowing for some agency and retiree growth. The reduc- tion would impact all agencies equally and preserve approxi- mate relative voting strengths . It would take e‡ect in the 2017 Election Cycle and no current board member would be a’ected. It also pro- vides for an alternate representative without vot- ing rights for FAS and FCS. Two bylaw articles would need to be amended to accomplish a new board size. Article V, Section 4 (b) would have to be amended. The amendment would increase the representation ratio to one representative for every 2,000 members or fraction thereof, so long as the frac- tion is greater than half, and ensure the election of an alternate representa- tive without voting rights for FAS and FCS. Article V, Section 5 (b) would have to be amended as well to reflect the fact that the alternate FAS and FCS representa- tives would only vote in AFSA Governing Board meetings in the absence of the respective con- stituency Vice President. (Exact changes in lan- guage are spelled out in the box on p.54) The constituency voting strength is based on the relative weights of constituencies as com- pared to the size of the Governing Board less the three AFSA-wide elected positions (President, Trea- surer, and Secretary). These three positions theoretically can come from any con- stituency and thus are not