The “Young Turks,” a group of aggressive, reform-minded middle- and junior-grade officers, controlled AFSA for three years at the beginning of the 1970s with the avowed goal of “reforming the Foreign Service.” Until then, there had been much discussion and no action. In fact, senior administrators had made it clear that AFSA was not going to dictate Foreign Service personnel policy. There was no clear path for enacting change. Then, in October 1969, President Richard Nixon announced he would establish unions in the federal service. It was a bombshell. Neither federal managers nor employee organizations knew exactly how to react. Nevertheless, EO 11491, “Labor Relations Management in the Federal Service,” was drafted and sent to all agencies. When Secretary of State Bill Rogers learned that the EO would make the Foreign Service part of an employee-management system under the Secretary of Labor, he demanded a separate system for the Foreign Service, reporting to the Secretary of State. The issue is said to have gone to the president, who supported Secretary Rogers. At this point Harrop was vice chair of AFSA. He would soon become chair, when Charlie Bray resigned to become the State Department’s press spokesman. Harrop understood the enormity of the opportunity. If AFSA could become the union of the Foreign Service, we could negotiate with management to achieve desired reforms, which would then become part of official State Department regulations. In 1970, under Harrop’s leadership, AFSA conducted a worldwide referendum to settle the question of whether a majority of AFSA members wanted to become the union of the foreign affairs agencies. Voter participation was high, and a clear majority favored unionization. The Department of Labor was directed to supervise talks involving primarily State management and AFSA to produce a separate executive order that would establish employee- management systems for the Foreign Services of State, USAID, and the U.S. Information Agency. The resulting EO 11636 established employee-management systems in these agencies and called for union representation elections. The provisions of EO 11636 were included in the text of the Foreign Service Act of 1980 and have been the law of the land ever since. Establishing AFSA’s Framework and Goals The protagonists in the union elections of 1971-1973 were AFSA (20,000 members) and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the 200,000-member Civil Service union. AFSA won all three representation elections by wide William C. Harrop, right, in his role as inspector general of the Department of State and the Foreign Service, meets with Secretary of State George Shultz in December 1983. ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF WILLIAM C. HARROP/FSJ SEPTEMBER 2015 William C. Harrop, center, with President George H.W. Bush (left) and Yitzhak Rabin in Kennebunkport, Maine, on July 10, 1982. William C. Harrop with current and former Secretaries of State during the September 2014 groundbreaking event for the United States Diplomacy Center. From left: Henry Kissinger, James Baker, John Kerry, Harrop, Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, and Colin Powell. William C. Harrop and his wife, Ann Delavan, in Meru National Park, Kenya, in October 1981. THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2025 101
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