bout de papier, Vol. 3, No. 3 (1985) — Fall 1985 // Automne 1985, p. 4
They deserve a pat on the back. As quarterback, Margaret Huber assembled a team of talent and kept her eye firmly on the bottom line. Jon Fried may one day be Departmental Legal Advisor. His acerbic examination of witnesses was revealing and convincing. Researching our case was no easy task but Hark Kroll stuck it out. The facts and figures that he and his friends assembled for our negotiators graphically illustrated how far the Foreign Service has slipped in terms of monetary benefits.
The Arbitral Award of 3.75 per cent for each of the next two years of the contract goes some distance to rectifying the slippage the Foreign Service Group has suffered since it began collective bargaining in 1966. The recognition that some form of acting pay is deserved is a small step
– forward. The Arbitration Tribunal would not buy the Treasury Board argument that acting pay has a calamitious effect on the Foreign Service and its assignment process. A lump sum bonus for those at the salary ceiling in their level will have to await better times. The extension of vesting for severance pay from ten to 15 years will save the government a few pennies; it was a small price. The confirmation that performance pay shall be paid effective April I answers those who try to drive us to an early bargain with the argument that every delay will only cost us dollars. With any luck the make-up cheques will arrive in time for Christmas and before the new year when the tax man can exact an even greater toll from our award. One main observation for the next round of negotiations: Treasury Board plays hard ball; the Queensberry rules do not apply. We need our best negotiators and we need to do our homework. It is statistics and hard facts that will prove our case should we have to go to arbritration. And unless Treasury Board is prepared to negotiate in good faith, arbitration offers our best hope for a fair settlement.
We welcome the appointments of Sy Taylor and Derek Burney to the Under-secretarial Office. It has been almost a decade since a careerist occupied the top job in the Foreign Service. Without reflection on those in that position in the intervening years — Alan Gotlieb, Gordon Osbaldeston, Marcel Masse, we believe that during a period of economic restraint and resource scarcity the general interests of the career foreign service will be well served by experienced hands completely familiar with the pecularities of the foreign service.
At the Annual General Meeting a number of questions were raised about the increase in bout de papier’s budget; the expanded length has roughly doubled our costs from $12,000 to $24,000 for four issues. In addition, a change in PAFSO budget procedure means that bout de papier has to pay its own postage. This raises our costs by additional $4,000 a year. We have partially offset the higher costs through an increase in advertising; we now bring in about $6,000 compared to $2,000 last year. Nonetheless, it seems likely that bout de papier will always require financial assistance from PAFSO. bout de papier remains an experiment. Each issue costs each member roughly $5. You must decide whether it is money well spent.
Finally, a small regret. bout de papier depends heavily on the excellent resources and obliging staff or the Pearson Library. The clipping service in particular has saved many a faux pas and provided many good story ideas. It is slated for the chop because of ’cutbacks in human resources’. Too bad.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 3, No. 3 (1985) — Fall 1985 // Automne 1985, p. 4. Read the rest of this issue →
