May 1, 1983
25.4.14
The grievor sought reimbursement of Foreign Service Travel Assistance under the 1982 provisions of Directive 50 from Tokyo to Canada in the summer of 1982.
The Administrative Committee considered and agreed with the report of the Foreign Service Directives Committee that under the 1982 Foreign Service Directives, FSD 50, Vacation Travel Assistance, was combined with the travel provisions of FSD 46, Canadian Leave and Allowance and FSD 57, Foreign Assignment Directive, in a new Foreign Service Travel Assistance Directive which, for service at non-hardship posts, provided return travel to the headquarters city once per tour of duty of 3 years or more. For an employee on posting on April 1, 1982, the number of years remaining in his current tour of duty constituted the length of tour of duty to determine frequency of travel except that one trip would be authorized during the remainder of the employee's tour of duty when the employee is placed in a less favourable position than that which would have applied under the 1979 Foreign Service Directives.
Under the 1979 Foreign Service Directives, Canadian Leave travel was authorized solely at the direction of management. In practice, for non-hardship posts such as Tokyo, Canadian Leave was authorized after two years of a three-year tour of duty. The grievor was granted Canadian Leave travel in the summer of 1980. As a result of a posting extension, the grievor is scheduled to leave Tokyo in the summer of 1983, and applied for a second trip to Canada in the summer of 1982, in accordance with the 1982 transitional provision. When his request was denied on the grounds that travel had already been authorized in the summer of 1980 he grieved on the grounds that mid-tour travel from Tokyo had been authorized on two occasions for another employee.
Travel under the 1979 provisions of FSD 46, Canadian Leave and Allowance, was not an entitlement but was granted solely on the direction of management. As the grievor had been granted travel under the 1979 Directives he was not entitled to further travel under the 1982 provisions of FSD 50, regardless of the fact that his tour of duty, including extensions, was almost five years. It was not the intent of the 1982 FSD's to provide additional travel from non-hardship posts in recognition of extensions of tours of duty. The grievance was denied.