Day 323 - Death of a Local Guard

  

by  orangesky3 

In the midst of all the stress of the investigation of the bombing of the USS Cole in Aden and then the ambassador's plane being hijacked, there was a more personal trajedy for the embassy staff. One of the local guards, Rashid*, was killed in an automobile accident. He was one of the roving patrol team of guards. We also had stationary guards at both the embassy and at our residences. The roving patrol traveled around the city, checking out traffic conditions and potential security problems. Because they were on the road while they worked, they were usually the first guards sent when an embassy employee needed help, such as the two times I had flat tires with my Rav 4 in the first week I had the car. The first time, I didn't know where to find the jack. The second time, I no longer had a spare - it was on the car, replacing the first flat.

The roving patrol guards traveled in pairs in their vehicles. The driver in the car survived the accident. Rashid was in the passenger seat. He had been with the embassy's guard program less than a year. His parents were divorced and his mother relied on his salary for support. Several of us from the embassy went to sit with his mother, as is the custom in Arabian countries. It was one of the most uncomfortable hours I have ever spent. There was nothing I could say except that I was sorry. And that sounded so small, so insignificant.

As the management officer, I had responsibility to process the death benefit for Rashid's family. What we thought would be a simple process got complicated right away. First, we had to investigate what local labor laws would provide in this case. If that benefit was less than what U.S. law would provide, the  family would get the difference from the U.S. government. Getting the answer to the question took much longer than we expected. But it was necessary before we could process the rest of the claim. 

That is when things got very complicated.

by  DonkeyHotey  Because so many employees of the Department of State, both American and local, live and work in dangerous and risky places, State considers Workers Compensation as a benefit that employees can rely on. Most agencies consider Workers Compensation as a risk to be mitigated. And the Department of Labor manages the program for all of the federal government. They consider Workers Compensation as a risk, something to be managed, something to be thoroughly investigated and denied whenever the claim doesn't fit every requirement. And the first criterion they consider is whether the employee making the claim was in the process of doing his job at the time of the accident. We could hardly believe it when the Department of Labor asked us to confirm that the driver was on duty when he was killed. We thought it was self-evident. He was a guard with the roving patrol. Roving patrols drive around the city. He was killed when the car he was in was hit while he and guard driver were driving around the city. Therefore, we thought it was clear, he was working. But the Department of Labor often refused similar claims when, for example, a mail carrier was injured in an accident when his van was hit while he was driving to a restaurant for lunch, because he was off duty for lunch.

Once it was clear that the guard was on duty at the time of the accident, the Department of Labor claimed we took too long to file the claim so we had to start over, providing even more documentation. By the time I left Yemen, I understood the claim had been accepted, but the family hadn't received the settlement.

Fortunately, the office I was next assigned to, in the bureau of Human Resources' Office of Employee Relations, was the office at State that handled liaison between State and Labor for Workers Compensation claims. It was fortunate because things still didn't go well. Labor told us the check had been sent, but the HR specialist in Sanaa, Samira, contacted me about six months later to ask if I knew what happened. No check arrived. I went back to Labor to ask and learned that Labor had instructed that Treasury send the check using the embassy's pouch address. When the envelope arrived, the mail room staff didn't recognize the name. Too much time had passed since the accident, so their supervisors also didn't recognize the name. Since the name wasn't one of the American employees, the only people eligible to receive personal mail via pouch, and they didn't know there was an official reason for someone they didn't know to receive a check from Treasury, they sent it back to Treasury. Labor didn't know the check had been returned until I called to tell them the family hadn't received it. Once they verified that the check had been returned, they requested a replacement check be sent. I contacted Samira to let her know a replacement was on the way. But no check arrived. So we started again. Labor confirmed that the replacement was never sent and they requested it again, I advised the embassy the check was in the mail, the check never arrived.

I was in that office for two years and during that time, checks were requested again and again, but no check ever arrived in Sanaa. I concluded that the software that processed the check request - probably within Treasury, not Labor - had a safeguard in it to prevent a duplicate payment from being sent in the case of a death benefit. I believe Labor requested replacement checks. But nothing happened. And Labor dismissed my suggestion of the possible explanation.

 by  DonkeyHotey 

At the end of that assignment, I went overseas for another year, to Africa, followed by an assignment back in the same building in Washington, also with Human Resources. That gave me the opportunity to check on the death benefit again. More than three years after Rashid died, Samira was no longer working for the embassy and the family still had not received the death benefit. I am afraid I became a pest during the next year as I asked repeatedly whether the check had been resent. During that year, four years after the death, Rashid's family finally received a check.

Bureaucracy, don't you just love it?

*a name, not necessarily the right one