The Foreign Service Journal, January 2008

J A NU A R Y 2 0 0 8 / F OR E I GN S E R V I C E J OU R N A L 59 Numerous respondents expressed outrage that they now have to accept close to a 20-percent cut in base salary when they leave Washington to serve overseas, while senior officers and employees of other U.S. agen- cies do not. A whopping 70 percent of members attached “high importance” to the effort to correct the inequity, while anoth- er 21 percent gave it “medium importance.” With regard to Iraq, a clear majority believes that war-zone postings should remain voluntary; some 68 percent oppose directed assignments as unnecessary and undesirable. More than 2,000 FSmembers — including 110 currently serving in Iraq and 295 who said they had previously done tours of duty there—provided comments on ways to encourage more people to vol- unteer for Iraq assignments. Many themes emerged repeated- ly: increasing the Separate Maintenance Allowance, getting tax exemptions for war-zone service, awarding meritorious step increases, shortening the length of a standard unaccompanied tour. But a large number of comments suggested a fundamen- tal disagreement with the whole approach of seeking ever greater incentives to staff an escalating list of Provincial Reconstruction Teams and an expanding embassy; instead, many hundreds of employees urged a downsizing of the U.S. mission there, both for practical and policy reasons. The survey comments reflect widespread resentment over a perceived lack of even-handedness in our assignment/promotion system, an issue that ranks a close second to the growing over- seas pay disparity in our members’ priorities. Numerous respon- dents cited glaring examples of preferential treatment of certain senior officers, people in key staff positions and inside “favorites” in certain bureaus. This mood clearly has an impact on peo- ple’s views of Secretary Condoleezza Rice’s call on the Foreign Service to do its duty by volunteering for Iraq, which many decried as selective. The steady shift towards greater hardship and unaccompanied service has highlight- ed the apprehensions of many of our col- leagues about their ability to manage their family life during the course of a Foreign Service career. The survey comments indi- cate a pervasive desire for the department to take a much more active, long-term approach to addressing the problems of family member employment overseas, the lack of status for members of house- hold, the dwindling school options for children at many posts and the urgent need for a better support structure for families separated by unaccompanied assignments. Many respondents linked this latter issue to their willingness to serve in Iraq, as well. This electronic opinion poll suggests one reason for declin- ing morale: relatively few members appear to believe that the senior department leadership is working on their behalf. Only a small percentage of respondents rated as either “very good” or “good” the efforts of Sec. Rice and other senior officials to defend the Foreign Service (18 percent), to secure resources for the depart- ment and its people (14 percent), or to get Congress to autho- rize overseas comparability pay (12 percent). A F S A N E W S The steady shift toward greater hardship and unaccompanied service has highlighted the apprehensions on managing family life during the course of a Foreign Service career. Survey • Continued from page 57