The Foreign Service Journal, September 2016

36 SEPTEMBER 2016 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL M ost Foreign Service mem- bers have a keen under- standing of the intricacies of our pay scales and benefits, but we don’t often give much thought to how locally employed (LE) staff (formerly known as Foreign Service Nationals, still the preferred term for many) at our overseas missions are compensated. How does the State Department account for local conditions at more than 200 posts to ensure that LE staff are paid adequately? The short answer is “prevailing practice.” Local labor markets are surveyed at each post to determine appropriate compensa- tion for our LE staff colleagues. In economies where prevailing labor practices are driven by free, fair and competitive labor WHEN PREVAILING PRACTICE FAILS By relying on prevailing practice to set locally employed staff compensation, we are benefiting from the same labor exploitation that we oppose as a matter of U.S. foreign policy. BY J E F F ERSON SM I TH Jefferson Smith has served as the management counselor at U.S. Embassy Kuwait since 2014. A management- coned Foreign Service officer since 2000, he has previously served in Kingston, Dar es Salaam (twice), Yaoundé, Dublin, Kuwait and Washington, D.C. Mr. Smith is the 2016 winner of the AFSA Award for Constructive Dissent by a Mid-Level Officer. markets, this model ensures that posts are able to attract, hire and retain quality employees. But many of the economies in which U.S. diplomatic missions operate are far from free or fair; instead, they are characterized by exploitative labor practices and human rights violations. In such places, following prevailing practice fails to meet the need of the State Department to maintain a corps of professional local employees. Moreover, it puts the department at risk of following the very practices that are condemned in our own reports on human rights, trafficking in persons (TIP) and labor conditions. Embassy Kuwait, where I ammanagement counselor, and other U.S. diplomatic missions in Gulf Cooperation Council member-states on the Arabian Peninsula have begun to advance the argument that the U.S. government must do better when prevailing practice fails. While we have had success in gaining policy exceptions, the department still needs to do more to lead (rather than follow) prevailing labor practices in exploitative labor markets, even if it requires an act of Congress to do so. Determining Prevailing Practice The Foreign Service Act of 1980 requires that the State Department base compensation for LE staff on prevailing wage rates and compensation practices in the host country, but qualifies this requirement with the clause “to the extent consis- SPOTLIGHT ON AFSA AWARDS