The Foreign Service Journal, April 2013

the Foreign Service journal | April 2013 19 Paving theWay For unionization focus afsa celebrates 40 years as a union A series of reforms during the 1960s transformed AFSA into an effective, energetic advocate for the career Foreign Service. By Harry W. Kopp F orty years ago, in elections held during 1972 and 1973, Foreign Service employees at the Department of State, the U.S. Information Agency and the Agency for International Development chose the American Foreign Service Association to be their sole representative in talks with management. It was a great victory, but not necessarily the one the leaders of the movement that earned it had set out to win. The officers who took control of AFSA in 1967 had intended to use the association as a platform for reshaping the Foreign Service and its role in foreign policy. But when events offered them a different opportunity, they were quick to seize it. FSJ Archives