The Foreign Service Journal, January 2007

look terrific if they take time to make their bosses, their colleagues and any subordinates look good while they themselves are trying to excel. R.T. (Ted) Curran FSO, retired Frankfort, Mich. AFSA & Comparability Pay The President’s Views column in the October FSJ took my breath away. For AFSA to back away from endors- ing overseas comparability pay be- cause of the ‘egregious flaws’ outlined in the piece is stunning. To forgo sup- porting a 17- 1 / 2 -percent increase in the pay of the majority of its membership is traitorous. Have the Senior Foreign Service members and those FS-1s and below who are more like the perma- nent party back there taken the reins and whipped AFSA senseless? The director general said in his Oct. 12 message (State 171592) that pay modernization is the department’s number-one management priority. I, as an FS-2 who has been overseas for over 10 years and lost tens of thou- sands of dollars in compensation due to our blatantly unfair system, stand beside the DG and State manage- ment. The idea of AFSA bragging that the issue is dead on arrival, due at least in part to their withdrawal of sup- port, makes me unfathomably angry. Where was AFSA when the SFS got its piece of the pie and the rest of us were left in the cold? Taking this position, AFSA has given cover to our adversaries. Those who would deny us the compensation so long overdue now have AFSA to thank. Many in Congress would like nothing more than to see this fail. Why? Because all the major federal employee unions are against it and members of Congress will win support if they can convince the union bosses that State’s program to accept pay for performance was derailed at their behest. Has Congress and/or the leadership of other unions co-opted our leadership? I, like the key admin- istration officials referenced in the president’s piece, am astonished. AFSA should have allowed all of us serving in the FS overseas, continuing to suffer serious pay deficiencies, to have our best shot at taking the money and running — to use the AFSA pres- ident’s phrase. I call on the membership of AFSA to stand up and refuse to support the position that our leadership has taken on this critical issue. Tell your AFSA elected officials they have lost their way on OCP. Beyond acting internally, voice your opinion to your elected represen- tatives in Congress. Letting them believe that AFSA speaks for its mem- bership on this issue is going to lose us our best shot at getting pay parity. We in the field have suffered while the SFS and Washington folks feast — it’s time to say enough is enough. Thomas L. Schmitz FSO Embassy Ashgabat AFSA President J. Anthony Holmes replies: Mr. Schmitz confuses AFSA’s refusal to accept the flawed original version of the bill, as offered by the administration in April, with the acceptable version that emerged in mid-August after AFSA’s four months of negotiations with the administra- tion and Congress. AFSA has worked flat-out the past 24 months to get Congress to legislate overseas compa- rability pay, including the past three months in concert with State Depart- ment management. We are deter- mined, however, to avoid having to sacrifice the long-term interests of the nation by politicizing the FS as the price for overseas comparability pay. AFSA’s approach has the overwhelm- ing support of our members accord- ing to our extensive surveying and member feedback. 8 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 7 L E T T E R S