bout de papier, Vol. 16, No. 1 (1999) — Spring 1999 // Printemps 1999, pp. 6–8
The Foreign Service Community Association looks at issues affecting Foreign Service spouses around the world.
A generation ago new employees of the Canadian Foreign Service assumed a lifelong commitment and loyalty to “the department”, and expected the same in return from their employer. Their families were similarly expected to be part of the team. From the spouse who graciously entertained people she barely knew (there were very few male spouses) to the children whose grubby faces automatically broke into polite if strained grins as they greeted adults whose language was unfamiliar in environments they didn’t recognize. If spouses had been employed outside the home while they were in Canada, it was expected that overseas allowances would mitigate any loss they felt on losing personal income and individual identity. It was also assumed that the employee and, by extension Canada, would lose face if his spouse was employed, or even if it became known she was unhappy not to be working.
We all had expectations, and it seems those of Foreign Service families changed faster in the past thirty years than did the institution they serve. However, the women who led the ’officers wives associations’ of the early seventies realized it was time to fold their largely social groups into one democratic association that would actively work for the changes that would be necessary for the future of all members of the Canadian Foreign Service. The result of their ruminations is the Foreign Service Community Association, an organization with a voluntary paid membership of rotational employees and their spouses and partners. Since its inception in 1975, the FSCA has lobbied for improvement in policies and services that affect Canadian Foreign Service families. Among its most notable successes are many of the briefings and workshops that are available through SERV, both before posting and on return, the community coordinator programs at many posts, and the change in the Citizenship Act that allows foreign-born spouses who are posted internationally with government employees to count that overseas time toward their residency period before applying for Canadian citizenship.
Working sometimes with the unions and sometimes with DFAIT, the FSCA has been involved in campaigning for changes in the Foreign Service Directives that affect families. The policies regarding accessibility to employment opportunities now available to spouses and partners at headquarters and at missions were only accomplished after long and intense discussion between the FSCA and DFAIT. In 1998 the association established the computer database for spousal employment available to all rotational spouses that may now become accessible to employment agencies working in Canada and at posts. In the past twelve years the association twice proposed the initiation of pension benefits for Foreign Service spouses. Neither succeeded.
On November 7, 1998, the Foreign Service Community Association, with the support of DFAIT, hosted a one-day conference in Ottawa to discuss and compare issues and policies that affect Foreign Service spouses around the world and the operation of the foreign ministries to which they are attached. The importance of these topics was reflected in the participation of representatives of 26 diplomatic missions together with members of the Canadian Foreign Service to total 100 participants. In addition, representatives of DFAIT management, other ministries of the Canadian Foreign Service, Treasury Board and the trade unions whose members are affected by the regulations and policies that were examined, were in attendance.
While similarities in concerns such as educational continuity for their children, and health maintenance while living internationally exist on all levels among all Foreign Service spouses, the conference confirmed that the most crucial issue facing them all, at the end of the twentieth century, is financial. The lack of continuity in employment opportunities over a wide range of skills and missions overseas and the subsequent absence of personal pension earnings for spouses and partners have particular relevance when it is clear that two incomes are not an indulgence, but a necessity for family maintenance.
Various combinations of compensation and pension benefits are being implemented or examined by foreign ministries. The lack of a direct employer-employee relationship between the ministries and the spouses of their employees has been a seemingly insurmountable hurdle over the years. However, some countries have made the decision to ignore that fact and make payment to the spouse through the employee.
The Nordic countries have led the way in implementing pensions for spouses and partners who are associated with their foreign services. The Swiss spousal association initiated an imaginative solution by attaining a payment from the foreign ministry that is paid through the employee for the spouse’s pension, and administering a private plan for spouses with an off-shore Swiss insurance company.
Great Britain is paying tax-free compensation to spouses who are willing but unable to work at posts, or who are unable to find employment at a financial rate comparable to that found at headquarters. In 1998 the United States Foreign Service ministries implemented a plan that allows spouses to work within their missions overseas and to transfer the possibility of employment between missions and back to the State Department and United States Information Service (USIS) in Washington, and as employees, to contribute to the federal government pension and health plans for the first time.
The Swedes market the special skills of their spouses through a database. The Swiss have a co-operative agreement with Swiss and German multi-national companies in which the resumes of company and foreign ministry spouses are listed, as are job openings that are open to both.
International employment outside one’s own diplomatic mission, particularly in professional fields, is more attractive to many spouses than working inside their government agencies. They seek support in finding that employment, including information for developing portable careers, and the initiation of international databases of employment opportunities.
The topics of health maintenance and family impact are constant concerns of internationally mobile families. The Austrian spouse’s association successfully lobbied to stimulate changes in the onerous academic demands made on Austrian children on return to Vienna. Similarly, participants recounted methods to assist their children in adapting to repeated change during various developmental stages in their lives. Our rapidly aging populations guarantee that the normal pressures on families to care for their aging members are exacerbated by the additional pressures exerted by the distances involved in living internationally. The expected stages of change were listed, as were the support services provided by the Canadian Foreign Service, and suggestions for change and for personal preparation.
In March 1998, a letter outlining suggestions regarding policies that affect spouses was sent by the FSCA to the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. An important element in the letter was a request for the formation of a Task Force to address these issues. In July, Mr. Campbell responded in the affirmative, and stated that the Task Force would meet after the Spousal Life Conference. In December the Task Force, consisting of eight representatives of DEAIT, CIC and CIDA and eight members of the FSCA, met twice. Since then the Task Force meets monthly and so do three subcommittees. Marc Lortie, the Champion of Spousal Employment on the Human Resources Strategy group, sits on the Task Force and is formulating recommendations to the Deputies. Issues that are being addressed are changes in Employment Insurance for rotational spouses, accrual of pension benefits for spouses while they are on posting, and improved policies to ensure accountability of heads of mission for fostering spousal employment opportunities within and outside Canadian missions. It has also been suggested that the possibility or impossibility of spousal employment be factored into hardship levels.
Spouses and partners must be able to earn salaries and accrue pension benefits while posted with employees overseas. If they cannot, the attrition rate among employees will continue to increase, and marital stresses will force couples to make difficult decisions regarding their personal relationships in or out of the Foreign Service. The Foreign Service Community Association continues to press management for the changes that will allow and indeed foster a truly representative Foreign Service that includes Canadian couples and families at our missions overseas without imposing impossible financial disadvantages on them.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 16, No. 1 (1999) — Spring 1999 // Printemps 1999, pp. 6–8. Read the rest of this issue →
