The Foreign Service Journal, September 2015

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2015 45 T he first year’s effort in implementing the Foreign Service Act of 1980 has produced a blizzard of draft regulations and personnel actions affecting, directly or indirectly, every member of the Service. It has proven to be a slow and sometimes painful process. We are convinced, however, that it is worth doing carefully and well, since we are laying the foundations for a house in which we all have to live for some time to come. In fact, implementation has been one of the foreign affairs agencies’ principal management concerns during the past year. We have come a long way since the act took effect on February 15, 1981, and this is nowhere more evident than in the first annual progress report recently filed with the Congress in accordance with Section 2402. Although much remains to be done before we can claim that implementation has been completed, the list of what has been accomplished in the first year is a long one. The first “Report to Congress on Implementation of the Foreign Service Act” summarizes the basic structural steps which have been taken, underlines the effort to ensure maximum compat- ibility among the foreign affairs agencies, outlines the transitional actions completed and under way, and projects our anticipated recruitment, attrition and promotion over the next five years. This article draws on that report to summarize the steps already taken. Executive Orders and Working Groups The report notes in its opening section that required presi- dential actions under the new statute have been taken in four executive orders. Three orders issued in 1980 and 1981 establish the new Foreign Service pay schedule, ensure that existing execu- tive orders conform to provisions of the new act, and imple- ment a number of miscellaneous provisions in the act including establishment of titles and salary levels for the Senior Foreign Service. The final executive order, recently issued, provides for establishment and operation of the Board of the Foreign Service, which under the act transfers to other organizations its previous responsibilities for separation appeals and the resolution of labor- management impasse disputes. In addition to the new Board of the Foreign Service, several other bodies were created or modified by the 1980 Act. The Board of Examiners of the Foreign Service, for example, was expanded to include public members with knowledge, experience or train- ing in the fields of testing or equal employment opportunity. The reconstructed board has already held three meetings and submitted its first annual report to the Secretary of State on the Foreign Service examination. Similarly, the Foreign Service Griev- ance Board has been reconstituted under the revised statutory authority contained in Chapter 11 of the act. Its primary functions continue unchanged, but it has acquired new responsibilities such as hearing appeals in separation cases and in labor-management implementation disputes. Also in the field of labor-management relations, both the Foreign Service Labor Relations Board and the Foreign Service Impasse Disputes Panel have been constituted within the Federal Labor Relations Authority. The FSLRB has already dealt with one issue referred to it, while two disputes have been submitted to the Impasse Disputes Panel for resolution. A great deal of time and energy has been devoted to carrying out the Foreign Service Act mandate for maximum compatibility among the foreign affairs agencies—State, AID, ICA [Interna- tional Communication Agency, the redesigned U.S. Information Agency], Commerce and Agriculture. Preparation of the new act necessitated major revisions in the personnel regulations of all five. Even prior to the effective date on the act, their person- nel directors had agreed that implementing regulations would be issued jointly whenever possible, and that an agency would issue separate regulations only when its particular circumstances dictated a different approach. Since that time, the agencies have endeavored to follow this philosophy. The primary vehicle for accomplishing this purpose has been a series of working groups established to develop common policies and draft regulations on particular topics, such as the Senior For- eign Service or new allowance authorities. There have also been, from time to time, further meetings of the personnel directors and a large volume of informal consultation at all levels. When the process is completed, which will take at least one additional year, we anticipate that a substantially greater proportion of the Foreign Service personnel regulations will be joint among the several agencies than was previously the case. Management’s View in 1982: Implementation Is Worth Doing Carefully and Well