AFSA: Closing the Overseas Pay Gap

1. We have a major success to report in the long-standing effort to close the overseas pay gap suffered by entry-level and mid-level Foreign Service members stationed abroad. Legislative language to begin to close the pay gap is contained in the 2009 Supplemental for Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Pandemic Flu that has now cleared the House and Senate and is headed for an expected Presidential signature in the coming days.

2. To recap how we got here: Funding to begin to close the pay gap was appropriated this spring in the FY09 omnibus appropriation bill. However, authorization legislation to permit the expenditure of those funds was still lacking. Late last year, AFSA and key allies convinced the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee -- on a unanimous, bipartisan basis -- to approve bills containing the needed authorization. While those bills never gained final passage, it is now clear that getting them through the two committees was a key development that set the stage for supporters to place funding in the FY09 omnibus appropriations and attach the
necessary authorization language to the must-pass war supplemental bill.

3. Once the President signs the bill into law, AFSA understands that State will move swiftly to close approximately one third of the current 23.1 percent gap. USAID, FAS, FCS, and IBB management will need to take similar steps. AFSA understands that USAID has sufficient funding for the remainder of FY09 to do so. While FY09 funding for FAS, FCS, and IBB is tight, implementing this for their relatively small number of
overseas non-senior Foreign Service members will have a modest budgetary impact. AFSA is asking State management to reach out to the other foreign affairs agencies to encourage consistency and uniformity in the implementation of this new Foreign Service-wide pay policy.

4. AFSA understands that the new pay will be treated as base pay so that, for example, the dollar value of hardship differentials based on the new higher base pay will themselves rise. We further understand that, during an anticipated three year phase-in period, current practices will not change for calculating virtual locality pay for annuity computation purposes.

5. One complication is that the legislation will apply only to FY09 and will thus expire this October 1. There is no way to avoid that since language in an appropriations bill is only valid for the year covered. Thus, new language will need to pass later this year to continue the three-year implementation. Several legislative vehicles exist that could accomplish that. AFSA and our allies will work to get that accomplished.

6. AFSA has many allies to thank for getting us to the brink of an important victory on this top priority goal: -- In the Senate, special thanks go to Senate Appropriations
Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and the Ranking Republican Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH). We are also grateful for the work of Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry (D-MA) and committee Ranking Republican Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN). Senate Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia Chairman Daniel Akaka
(D-HI) and subcommittee Ranking Republican Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) deserve great credit for their ongoing support. In addition, we appreciate the support of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) for their support at key moments.

-- In the House of Representatives, we recognize the leadership of House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) and committee Ranking Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL). We recognize HFAC members Rep. Don Payne (D-NJ), Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), and Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY). And a special thanks to Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) who has been a long time advocate for a solution. We appreciate the support of Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-NY) of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs and subcommittee Ranking Republican Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX). Also, Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL), Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), and House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) all made important contributions
at critical junctures.

-- In the Executive Branch, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton led the final successful push to secure legislation to close the overseas pay gap. During her tenure and also that of her predecessor, State’s senior management team worked actively behind the scenes to advance these efforts.

-- Last but not least, we thank those AFSA members (active duty and retired) who stepped up to the plate at various times in recent years to write to, or meet with, lawmakers to raise the pay gap issue. We thank the many members who provided vital support to AFSA’s lobbying efforts via their financial contributions to AFSA’s Legislative Action Fund. We thank those in the news media, the Government Accountability Office, and the Congressional Research Service who took the time to understand this issue and provide independent validation of the seriousness of the
pay gap problem. We give special thanks to AFSA Legislative Director Ian Houston (recently promoted to be AFSA Executive Director) whose persistence and persuasive abilities were vital to our success on Capitol Hill.

7. A final comment. On the eve of resigning the AFSA Presidency on June 12 to transfer overseas, John Naland left this note: “The effort to close the overseas pay gap began on February 16, 2001 when the Washington Post’s Federal Diary noted that CIA employees, but not Foreign Service members, receive Washington D.C.-based comparability pay when serving abroad. I, as then AFSA State Vice President, was the
source of that unclassified information which began the public discussion about pay equity for diplomats. Having been present at the start of this effort, I am delighted to see it headed to a successful, if long overdue, conclusion.”

No wheels blues

Unlike Ethiopia, public transit in Buenos Aires is extensive, safe, and cheap. Nevertheless, we miss having our own car to run errands and drop/pick up various and sundry children at social occasions and activities. So far, our grand plan for getting a car here has been thwarted.

We sold our Nissan Patrol 4x4 in Ethiopia - for what we paid for it two years before :-) - because we didn't need such a huge gas-guzzler in Argentina. We wouldn't even be able to park it in the garage here, Argentina has good streets and roads and a European-style small-car culture.

Realizing that renting a car during our seven weeks of home leave and training would have cost us upwards of $1600, we decided instead to buy a 2006 Honda Accord, thinking we could then ship it to Argentina. We hadn't counted on the continuing effects of a scandal here, which broke in January. In short, with the illicit cooperation of some corrupt people in the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs, some diplomats imported some very pricey vehicles tax-free and sold them to locals for huge profits. The entire MFA section responsible for customs clearance of all diplomatic shipments was fired.

Since then, air freight and household shipments have been cleared fairly rapidly, but the Ministry has been denying many automobile import requests. There also doesn't seem to be any logic to why some cars are permitted and others aren't, despite multiple requests for guidance and information.

Thus our perfectly-good Honda is sitting at my uncle's house in Florida while we await MFA's ruminations of whether we can import it. If they deny entry to it, our alternatives are inconvenient or expensive.

We're waiting and seeing while we hail another cab.

Arrived and Highspeed in Buenos Aires

Howdy folks. We arrived in Buenos Aires on July 31 and are settling in nicely. We moved right into our 5 BR, 4-1/2 BA mansion in the tony suburbs, about 10 mins. walk from school and the same distance from the train that takes me downtown to the Embassy. Clara and Gwendolyne started school and are enjoying it so far. Patricia plans to start Spanish classes at a private institute downtown on Monday, and I'll take classes twice a week at the Embassy starting Friday.

We still don't have our car - that's a whole other story I'll relate later - but our air shipment arrived and we have the first 700 lbs of our stuff.

We got high-speed Internet installed on Tuesday - 3 Mb down, 256 kb up, so we're able to use our Lingo VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol). This allows those of you who remember our telephone number from Arlington (and if you don't remember it, just e-mail us and we'll remind you) to call us - the phone rings right here in Buenos Aires. Ahhh, the wonders of modern infrastructure!

I reached an important milestone on July 28 - I received tenure! It doesn't come with a raise or anything, but now I can't be fired short of a criminal conviction. I'm in good company too, as all the IT guys I started with also received tenure, as did many of my colleagues in the other specialties.

Cool Simpsons Avatar

Now that we're back in the States for a bit (in DC until July 2, then home leave) and we have a high-speed connection, I can do stupid random things such as create my very own Simpsons avatar and update the blog occasionally.

Just as a brief update, we loved our time in Ethiopia and were very sad to leave. Many of my colleagues cried at our departure, and I'll miss them too.

We made multiple trips around the country, went on safari in Tanzania and spent some time on the beach in Zanzibar, so we tried to take full advantage of the opportunity.

We're headed to Buenos Aires at the end of July for two years and are stoked about this next assignment!

Here's the avatar - does it look like me or does it need some work?

Bid List

Lack of a fast Internet connection and busy times at work have meant no updates for a while. I do want to share more photos from our Northern Ethiopian trip later.

Our bid list for next summer came out, and we've been working on what and how we want to bid. There are 35 positions, of which two are in Beijing and one in Addis Ababa (my job), which I'm not allowed to bid. I have to list 20 jobs, in rank order, that I'd be willing to accept. Here's the list, in alpha order:

Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire (No children allowed here)
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Algiers, Algeria (No children allowed here)
Bangkok, Thailand
Beijing, China (two jobs here)
Beirut, Lebanon (No children allowed here)
Berlin, Germany
Bogota, Colombia
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Chengdu, China
Doha, Qatar
Frankfurt, Germany
Geneva, Switzerland
Hong Kong
Islamabad, Pakistan (unaccompanied)
Jakarta, Indonesia
Katmandu, Nepal
Kyiv, Ukraine
Lima, Peru
Lusaka, Zambia
Managua, Nicaragua
Maputo, Mozambique
Mexico City, Mexico
Mumbai, India
Nairobi, Kenya
New Delhi, India
Port Louis, Mauritius
Santiago, Chile
Taipei, Taiwan
The Hague, The Netherlands
Tirana, Albania
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Vienna, Austria
Zagreb, Croatia

As you might suspect, it's easy to choose where we really would like to go, and where we really don't want to go; it's numbers 17-23 that are the difficult ones, because we can be assigned any of the posts we bid on. I'm confident that we'll receive a good assignment, though, as my predecessor here in Addis got his first choice, and his predecessor got his second choice.

I have until September 21 to bid, so if you have comments on any of these, get them to me soon!

In other news, the Ethiopian New Year starts on September 12, and this year will be year 2000 in their Coptic calendar. There are many events planned here for the end of the current Millennium, and because of the influx of so many people, the Embassy is closing Tuesday through Thursday. Short week this week!

Bahir Dar, Blue Nile Falls & Lake Tana

After a night at Debre Markos in the Shebel Hotel, we packed up and headed on to Bahir Dar, on the shores of Lake Tana, Ethiopia's largest lake and the source of the Blue Nile. After hanging out and resting in the Ghion Hotel - a garden paradise right on the lake - we drove the next morning to the Blue Nile falls...

That night we went out for Ethiopian food at Amanuel restaurant - veggies and fish since it was fasting time during Lent - and then to a traditional dance club right next door. Art & Mom especially liked the dancing and singing, but our girls were tired and we had to turn in early.
The following day we undertook an all-day boat-trip on Lake Tana, with an eye toward visiting some of the famous monasteries on the lake. Unfortunately, many of them refuse to admit women on their islands, let alone inside their churches, though some did...

Catching up

There's no way I'll be able to catch everything up at once - too much happens in a month.

I mentioned the bar-coded pouch system a few posts back... everything went great, and I even received a kudos telegram and a Franklin Award (with a monetary award as well) for my efforts with it. What made it especially nice was that the telegram and award news arrived during employee evaluation season.

Clara turned eight last month..

.

She received (among other things) a makeup set

and, from Grandmama, a lovely blue bathrobe

When Mom and her gentleman-friend Art were here, we managed to get away to Lake Langano for a few days. Here we visited the hot spring across the lake:

A week later, we - all six of us, as the girls had spring break from school - embarked on a 2000 km road trip of the "northern historic route".

We left on Friday afternoon directly from the Embassy - I had to finish tipping a fiber connection before leaving - and drove north-west to Debre Markos, about 300 km from Addis Ababa. Along the way, we traversed rolling hills on perfect pavement until we approached the Blue Nile Gorge. It took about two hours to traverse the 40 km down to the "second Portuguese Bridge" - where Art almost had his camera confiscated for taking pictures - and back up the other side past a construction zone.

Mamie out, Grandmama in

Patricia's Mom left on Friday, after making an exhausting but rewarding trip to the north of Ethiopia with a Frenchie tour group. No, she wasn't abducted, she returned safe and sound and is back in France.

Speaking of which, the media attention on the kidnapping of the British diplomats in the Afar region is, in my opinion, completely overblown. It's an area that is known for banditry and is very close to the disputed border with Eritrea. The Ethiopian government prefers that groups going there be protected with armed guards. There are parts of the US or Europe I would not feel safe going to, and Afar has a reputation. If you don't want trouble, don't go there (of course I make no excuses for the perpetrators of these abductions).

Anyway, as with other unfortunate events, the media paints Ethiopia as a dangerous place, though only a very small number of people are effected personally by the original event; because of the press's lack of perspective, the entire country will suffer a huge financial loss when other tourists stay away. It's too bad, because on the whole the people are friendly, honest, easygoing, and nonviolent. As usual, a few bad apples spoil the bunch.

Anyway, my Mom and her gentleman-friend flew in Sunday (a day late due to an ice storm in Syberacuse), and are here for 3-1/2 weeks.

Clara celebrated her eighth birthday on Sunday as well - photos to come. She was very happy to receive her makeup kit, new PJ's, toy car, and magnetic tinker-type toys, among other presents. Gwendolyne is still young enough, at not-quite-six, to be jealous of her sister's birthday falling two months prior to hers.

Work is fine. I hosted three people from DC here on a project to computerize our Diplomatic Pouch system. It was a success all around, so that was a feather in my cap. Unfortunately I'm working late right now, but I take the good with the bad. We're still very happy here in Ethiopia and are all doing well. Drop a note and let us know what's new in your world!