Tag Archives: FSNs

FSN Recognition Day: Gratefulness and Celebration, So Now They’ll Finally Get an Ombudsman?

November 19, 2020 By in Foreign Service, Locally Employed Staff, Realities of the FS, Social Media, Staffing the FS, State Department Tags: , ,

 

US Mission Turkey: @ABDIstanbul Employee Mete Canturk Gets 5-Year Jail Term #WhatAreYouGonnaDo #StateDept

October 28, 2020 By in Consulate General, EUR|Europe, Hall of Shame, Locally Employed Staff, Real Post of the Month, Realities of the FS, State Department, Trends, U.S. Missions Tags: , , , , , , ,

 

Reuters notes that Mete Canturk is the third U.S. consulate worker to be convicted in Turkey. Hamza Ulucay was sentenced to 4-1/2 years in prison on terrorism charges. Metin Topuz, a translator for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration at the consulate in Istanbul, was sentenced in June to nearly nine years in jail for aiding Gulen’s network.
See more here:

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Dear @StateDept, What Are You Going to Do About Metin Topuz’s Imprisonment Besides Being “Deeply Troubled?”

June 12, 2020 By in Court Cases, Federal Agencies, Locally Employed Staff, Mike Pompeo, Pompeo, State Department, Trends, Trump, U.S. Missions Tags: , , , , , , ,

 

The United States can do a lot more than simply express being “deeply troubled” or its “deep disappointment.” The question is will it do more? How much is it willing to do when it comes to Metin Topuz, a Turkish citizen employee who worked at the U.S. Consulate General in Istanbul prior to his arrest?
The State Department has 50,059 locally employed staff at 275 posts in 195 countries.
In August 2018, the Treasury Department targeted Turkish Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul and Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu with financial sanctions over the country’s refusal to release Andrew Brunson, a Christian pastor who had been imprisoned by the Turkish government on charges of terrorism and espionage. In October 2018, Brunson was convicted, by Turkish authorities, on the charge of aiding terrorism, but was released from Turkish custody and returned to the United States.

 

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Snapshot: Historical Numbers of Foreign Service, Civil Service and FSN Employees (2007-2017)

December 15, 2017 By in Career Employees, Foreign Service, FSOs, Locally Employed Staff, Snapshots, Staffing the FS, State Department Tags: , , , , , ,

Posted: 2:01 am ET

 

Via state.gov

 

Note: Click on lower right hand arrow on the Cloudup screen to maximize the reading area.

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Burn Bag: Consular Locally Employed Staff on LinkedIn? #VisaTroubles

November 3, 2016 By in Consular Work, Functional Bureaus, Locally Employed Staff, Social Media, State Department, Technology and Work, U.S. Missions, Visas Tags: , , , , , 3 Comments

Via Burn Bag:

“So, the Consular Section’s locally engaged employees are publicly identifying themselves as such on LinkedIn? Not a good idea.”

via imoviequotes.com

via imoviequotes.com

LES – Locally Employed Staff

FSNs – Foreign Service National employees

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Mr. Smith Writes to Washington, Goes to Bat For Local Staff in the Persian Gulf’s Unfair Labor Markets

July 12, 2016 By in Compensation and Benefits, Dissent, Foreign Service, FS Groups, FSOs, Leadership and Management, Locally Employed Staff, NEA|Near East Asia, Realities of the FS, Reform, U.S. Missions Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Posted: 2:43 am ET
Updated: 10:17 am PT
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Via AFSA:

William R. Rivkin Award for Constructive Dissent by a Mid-Career Officer – Jefferson Smith, U.S. Embassy Kuwait

Jefferson Smith receives this year’s William R. Rivkin Award for Constructive Dissent by a Mid-Career Officer for his commitment to combatting unfair labor practices and his push for compensation reform for locally employed (LE) staff at posts in the Persian Gulf.

While posted to Kuwait, Management Counselor Smith observed that the nine embassies and consulates in the Persian Gulf region are staffed almost exclusively by third-country nationals (TCNs) who did not enjoy the rights of citizens and earned wages and benefits so low that they could not support their families. U.S. Embassy Kuwait employs more than 200 TCN men and women from 27 different nationalities—and employs no Kuwaitis because the U.S. government does not pay enough to attract them.

Mr. Smith gathered data, framed his arguments and then brought his views to a regional management officers’ conference, where he found allies and organized a regionwide approach. He then wrote a detailed, thoughtful cable to Washington, signed by the six regional ambassadors, proposing that the department should define a new standard for compensating its LE staff at posts employing a majority of TCNs in unfair labor markets.

In short, Mr. Smith challenged the department to lead—not just follow—local practice in these markets. All of his preparation and action had an effect: The under secretary for management approved a Public Interest Determination (a policy exception) to create housing and education allowances for LE staff, and moved U.S. Embassy Kuwait to the top of the list for the next tranche of wage increases. The result was an average 22-percent salary increase in addition to the new allowances.

Mr. Smith’s success in winning a more just compensation package for the LE staff of U.S. Embassy Kuwait was an important milestone that will serve as a model as he and others continue to fight for a more equitable way to compensate employees under these conditions.

Mr. Smith has served in Kuwait since 2014. As a management-coned Foreign Service officer, Mr. Smith has had opportunities to serve in consular, economic, political and management functions in four regional bureaus and six overseas assignments, including Kingston, Dar es Salaam (twice), Yaoundé, Dublin and Kuwait.

The annual award is named after Ambassador William R. Rivkin (1919–1967) who served as ambassador to Luxembourg, Senegal, and Gambia in the 1960s.  He is the father of Charles Rivkin, the current U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs, and the former U.S. Ambassador to France (2009-2013). Read A/S Rivkin’s Honoring Constructive Dissent: The William R. Rivkin Award on DipNote.

We should note that this is one of AFSA’s three dissent awards and is separate from the State Department “Dissent Channel.” The FAM precludes the use of the official Channel to address “non-policy issues (e.g., management or personnel issues that are not significantly related to substantive matters of policy).”

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Baloun v. Kerry: U.S. Equal Employment Protection Do Not Cover Foreign Employees of U.S. Embassies

April 21, 2016 By in Court Cases, EUR|Europe, Foreign Service, Functional Bureaus, Govt Documents, Locally Employed Staff, Regulations, State Department, U.S. Missions Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted: 4:03 am ET
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The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is responsible for enforcing federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of the person’s race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information. It is also illegal to discriminate against a person because the person complained about discrimination, filed a charge of discrimination, or participated in an employment discrimination investigation or lawsuit.  Discrimination types includes:

Last year, State/OIG did an inspection (PDF) of the State Department’s Office of Civil Rights, an office that reports directly to the secretary of state and is tasked with the following:

… charged with propagating fairness, equity, and inclusion throughout the Department’s workforce. S/OCR answers to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and is charged with ensuring a nondiscriminatory workplace environment, investigating Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) complaints and harassment inquiries, and working with the Bureau of Human Resources to implement federally mandated requirements in the Department’s diversity and disability hiring process. S/OCR is answerable to the EEOC, Congress, and other executive branch agencies in reporting on the Department’s standing in complaint and diversity statistics and recruitment planning.

The report includes a section labeled: EEO Liaisons for Locally Employed Staff Overseas

S/OCR has stepped up efforts to improve counseling and training for locally employed (LE) staff overseas. Providing EEO counseling to LE employees complies with Department policy in 3 FAM 1514.2 (a) and (d) rather than a regulatory mandate and is not included in S/OCR’s external reporting requirements. Nevertheless, in 2013 S/OCR began tracking counseling for these employees; the initial intake is recorded in the EEO counselor SharePoint site. The Intake and Resolution Section is also in the process of revamping LE counselor training; for example, having post EEO counselors train the LE liaisons and improving written training materials for LE staff. S/OCR believes these efforts have increased awareness among LE staff members and led to an increase in the number of complaints from them, although these numbers are not available, since the section only recently began tracking them.

The most recent OIG inspection of the U.S. Embassy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan (PDF) includes the following item on Equal Employment Opportunity:

The names and contact information of the EEO counselor and the EEO liaisons for the locally employed staff members were not publicized, as required by 3 FAM 1514.2a. OIG suggested that this information be added to mission bulletin boards. Also, OIG suggested EEO refresher training for the mission-wide locally employed staff and their EEO liaisons.

The OIG inspection report of the U.S. Embassy Japan (PDF) in 2015 include the following details:

In interviews, the OIG team learned that the embassy did not report three complaints of sexual harassment to the Office of Civil Rights as required. Although embassy officials had taken actions to address these complaints, they were unaware of this reporting requirement and told the OIG team they would report these allegations to the Office of Civil Rights. According to 3 FAM 1525. 2-1 c, supervisors and other responsible Department officials who observe, are informed of, or reasonably suspect incidents of possible sexual harassment must report such incidents immediately to the Office of Civil Rights, which will initiate or oversee a prompt investigation. Without adherence to this requirement, sexual harassment complaints could go unreported to the Department.
[…]
According to 13 FAM 312 c, EEO and diversity training is mandatory for all managers and supervisors, and all employees are strongly encouraged to participate in EEO and diversity awareness training or training containing an EEO and diversity module, on average, every 5 years. EEO and sexual harrassment complaints lower office morale and employee productivity. These compaints/cases are also time consuming and can be costly to settle.

These EEO and diversity trainings — do they include a part where non-U.S. citizen employees of U.S. embassies and agencies operating overseas are told they are not covered by EEO regulations?

So there are trainings and appointed EEOC liaisons but if a local employee file a case, post and the EEOC goes through the motion of investigating; and then sorry, non-U.S. citizens are not covered by these EEOC regulations? Isn’t this just a game of pretense? Below is an EEOC ruling extracted from publicly available court records:

Earlier this year, Dalibor Baloun, the former FSN of US Embassy Prague in this EEOC noncase filed an employment discrimination lawsuit against Secretary Kerry in the District Court for the District of Columbia with the notion — as indicated by the EEOC letter under the “right to request counsel” — that he could ask the court for an appointment of an attorney and waiver of other court costs.

Federal civil rights statutes expressly permit aliens to bring claims of civil rights violations in federal court. And the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides for the right of counsel in criminal prosecutions but it does not say anything about civil litigations. Has there ever been an instance when a U.S. court granted a a court appointed attorney for a foreign employee of a U.S. Government who is residing overseas? Or is that EEOC letter just template language?

We should note that while we do not have an exhaustive list of all discrimination claims filed against the State Department, we have only been aware of one case filed by a locally hired employee that prevailed in U.S. courts. That locally hired employee is also a U.S. citizen hired overseas.  See Miller v. Clinton: Amcit FSN takes State Dept to Court for Age Discrimination  and Miller v. Clinton: Court Says State Dept Not/Not Exempt from Age Discrimination Law.

 

Related items:

Are Foreign Nationals Entitled to the Same Constitutional Rights As Citizens (Georgetown Law, 2003)

 

 

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State Department Dedicates Diplomatic Security (DS) Memorial

September 22, 2015 By in Diplomatic Attacks, Diplomatic Security, Foreign Service, Functional Bureaus, Locally Employed Staff, Memorial, Realities of the FS, Security, State Department, U.S. Missions Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted: 12:06 am EDT
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The Diplomatic Security (DS) Memorial was dedicated on September 18, 2015, to honor the many individuals who have given their lives to support the mission of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security Gregory B. Starr hosted the event with Antony J. Blinken, Deputy Secretary of State; Lt. Gen. Ronald Bailey, Deputy Commandant of the United States Marine Corps, Plans, Policies, and Operations; and Bill Miller, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary and Director of the Diplomatic Security Service, in attendance. See D/Secretary Blinken’s remarks here.

Before the installation of the Diplomatic Security Memorial, DS was the only federal law enforcement agency without its own memorial. Many of those who gave their lives in service to DS were not eligible for inclusion on the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) Memorial, which primarily honors members of the Foreign Service who died while serving abroad.

On the date of its unveiling, the DS Memorial contained the names of 137 individuals from diverse backgrounds and countries throughout the world. They include:

27 U.S. Government Personnel

  • 4 Diplomatic Security Service Special Agents
  • 6 Diplomatic Couriers
  • 12 U.S. Military—Marine Security Guards
  • 5 Other U.S. Military—Embassy Security Operations

36 Private Security Contractors

74 Local Security Personnel

  • 31 Local Guard Force
  • 31 Local Law Enforcement
  • 6 Foreign Service Nationals
  • 6 Locally Employed Staff

The DS Memorial consists of the 1) DS Memorial Wall–A Visual Tribute, located inside the main lobby of Diplomatic Security headquarters in Rosslyn, Virginia; 2) Memorial Kiosk, installed with the DS Memorial Wall, the kiosk displays information about Diplomatic Security and its personnel who lost their lives in the line of duty. The information is searchable by name, year of death, country of death, and job position at time of death; 3) Memorial Website at (www.dsmemorial.state.gov) with the names of the fallen personnel hosted in a special portion of the Diplomatic Security website, the online DS Memorial displays all names of the fallen and provides a search tool for locating individuals.

via state.gov/ds

via state.gov/ds

 

The memorial goes back to 1943 and includes James N. Wright, a Diplomatic Courier who died on February 22, 1943,
in Lisbon, Portugal, in the line of duty in an airplane crash. Two years later, another Diplomatic Courier, Homer C. White, died on December 4, 1945, in Lagos, Nigeria, in the line of duty in an airplane crash.

The largest number of casualties is suffered by the local security personnel.  At least 31 local law enforcement personnel (working for the host government) were lost protecting USG facilities and personnel overseas. As many local guard force employed/contracted by the USG were also killed in the line of duty.  In 2014, Shyef, Moa’ath Farhan, a Yemeni Local Law Enforcement employee, died in Yemen, while protecting a checkpoint near U.S. Embassy Sanaa during a suicide attack. In fact, 7 of the 31 law enforcement personnel killed were all lost in Yemen.   That same year, Abdul Rahman, a locally employed staff was killed while performing his duties near the traffic circle at the main entrance to Kabul International Airport in Afghanistan. He was one of several individuals killed by a lone suicide bomber. In 2013, Mustafa Akarsu, a member of the local guard force was killed during a suicide attack at the U.S. Embassy in Turkey.  That same year, eight members of the local guard force died on September 13, during the attack on U.S. Consulate Herat in Afghanistan.

Note that this memorial only includes FSNs/locally employed staff who supported the mission of  the Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS) and not all FSNs who lost their lives while working for the USG overseas.

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Burn Bag: Unclear on the concept?

July 6, 2015 By in Diversity, Foreign Service, FSOs, Huh? News, Leadership and Management, Locally Employed Staff, Org Life, Training, U.S. Missions Tags: , , , , , 2 Comments

Via Burn Bag:

During Ramadan our FSNs fast during the day. In an effort to build unity, our political section is holding its second offsite in 6 months for 7 Americans and 10 FSNs. They are paying a speaker over a thousand dollars to lecture on diversity in the workplace. Coffee breaks and a fancy lunch will be catered for the Americans. 

via Doctor Who Tumblr

via Doctor Who Tumblr

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FSNs – Foreign Service Nationals also known as Locally Employed Staff (LES).