The Foreign Service Journal, January-February 2023

22 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2023 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL narrow definition of management official that would put the vast majority of FSOs in the bargaining unit; and, • State Department management’s overriding goal was to protect the special status conferred on the Secretary of State and the Foreign Service Director General by the Rogers Act of 1924. Interestingly, management itself was divided into two groups. Many senior officers—Bill Macomber, Nat Davis, Larry Eagle- burger come immediately to mind—were in varying degrees sympathetic to the Young Turks’ objectives. For them, love of the Foreign Service and its people trumped all else. Other managers, sovereign in their areas of expertise, had great difficulty accept- ing that they would have to negotiate with middle-grade political and economic officers (the AFSA leadership) with any disagree- ments going to third-party adjudicators. While the above groups were forming and dissolving coali- tions on the various questions that arose, AFSA President Bray had the challenge of discovering whether AFSA and the Foreign Service actually wanted a union. Bray held a worldwide referen- dum on the issue of whether AFSA should form a union. A sta- tistically overwhelming 2,241 members participated, 25 percent of the total membership, with 85 percent favoring the proposal. Bray also proposed a formal board vote on participating in the upcoming union election. The proposal was strongly, but not unanimously, approved. Bray began meetings with manage- ment on the form of the new employee-management structure, but these discussions were overtaken by two developments that unfolded concurrently—namely, the 1971 AFSA election and a negotiation chaired by the Department of Labor on the form of our employee-management system to be detailed/codified in a separate Foreign Service executive order. The Existential Negotiation over Executive Order 11636 . In October 1969, President Nixon issued E.O. 11491 establishing an employee-management relations system for the federal government service, including the Foreign Service. Secretary Letter from Secretary of State William P. Rogers to AFSA Board Chair William C. Harrop affirming AFSA’s recognition as the exclusive representative for the State Department’s Foreign Service. AFSA The “Bray Board,” headed by reformer Charles W. Bray III, steered AFSA from January through December 1970. The board prepared the way for AFSA’s victories in representation elections and negotiations with management. Pictured here, from left: George B. Lambrakis, Alan Carter, Erland Heginbotham, Barbara Good, Richard T. Davies III, Bray, William G. Bradford, Princeton Lyman, William Harrop, and Robert Nevitt. FSJDIGITALARCHIVE of State William Rogers objected strongly to an FS employee– management system controlled by the Secretary of Labor rather than himself. This disagreement reportedly went to the president, who decided in favor of Secretary Rogers. The Foreign Service would have its own employee-management system. However, the