The Foreign Service Journal, April 2009

J udging from the wildly enthusiastic reception that the employees of the Department of State gave to our new boss upon her arrival in“The Building”on Jan. 22, there can be no doubt that expectations of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are running high. We in the Foreign Service know better than anyone how much work this Secretary has ahead of her in repairing our country’s relationships around the world, and in restoring American diplomacy and leadership. We are keenly aware that her substantive to-do list is quite long. It includes ex- tricating us from two protracted wars and resolving serious con- flicts in multiple regions. It en- compasses finding common ground with allies on strategies for dealing with terrorism, prolif- eration of weapons of mass de- struction, global climate change and the worldwide economic cri- sis. And it requires undertaking a major repair job on the image of the United States. We also know how much unfinished business this Secretary inher- ited from her predecessor. So her plate is full on the policy side. But at the same time, we fervently hope that Secretary Clinton will embrace the management side of her job de- scription as well. She has assumed responsibility for one of the most important departments of the U.S. government, whose thousands of employees have suffered serious neglect for years. The dedicated professionals of the U.S. Foreign Service assigned to our embassies and consulates all over the world face unique, unprecedented challenges, many of which place burdens on our careers and our families that other federal employees never encounter. By the time this column appears in print, we at AFSA will have had our first meeting with the new Secretary and will have set forth our suggestions for an ambitious management agenda for her. Our overall message is that Sec. Clinton has a historic opportunity to fix problems and right wrongs that have plagued our diplomatic service for decades. We will impress upon the Secretary that her management agenda is also lengthy. For example, there is simply no rea- son Foreign Service employees assigned overseas should con- tinue to be deprived of the basic locality pay that all other federal employees receive — and to see that pay gap widen every year until Congress and the administration act to cor- rect it. It is unconscionable that our nation’s military and intelligence budgets continue to dwarf our budget for diplo- macy on a scale unseen in any other country, and that our embassies and consulates are understaffed and strapped for resources. We hope to persuade Sec. Clinton to work with AFSA to restructure the Foreign Service assignment and promotion systems, placing the highest value on leadership skills, re- gional and country-specific expertise, and diplomatic ac- complishment — not just on willingness to serve in hardship posts. We will encourage her to col- laborate with AFSA in modern- izing — and humanizing — the Foreign Service career to take ac- count of the personal and family needs of its members who are spending much of their lives in difficult and dangerous overseas locales. She will surely agree that we cannot continue to have a Foreign Service where family members find most work opportunities blocked, domestic partners who accompany our diplomats abroad have no official status, and pregnant employees must exhaust all of their vacation leave to cover a three-month mandatory evacuation for childbirth, and whose regulations are too rigid to accommodate loyal employees who need a bit of flexibility in order to deal with a medical disability, a dying parent, a sick child or any of the other family crises that happen to people in the real world. Addressing these management challenges is not just vital for the people who serve our country overseas, but for the health of our nation’s foreign policy. With a Democrat in the White House and Democratic leadership in both houses of Congress, Sec. Clinton can play the decisive role in ending these disparities once and for all. Responding to the feedback and suggestions from thou- sands of our members in recent years, AFSA can provide a long list of concrete proposals. If Sec. Clinton is willing to give an open hearing to these ideas and to devote some of her time, her formidable intellect and her political energy to implementing them, she might well go into the history books as the Secretary of State who brought the Foreign Service into the 21st century. All Eyes on Her A P R I L 2 0 0 9 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 41 A F S A N E W S V.P. VOICE: STATE BY STEVE KASHKETT Sec. Clinton has a historic opportunity to fix problems and right wrongs that have plagued our diplomatic service for decades.