Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960807203040.8315B-100000@fox.ksu.ksu.edu> Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 20:32:40 -0500 From: kerry miller <mailto:astingsh@KSU.EDU> Subject: Am Reporter: AID Workers Protest To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
http://www.newshare.com/Reporter/today.html
(7 Aug 96)
AGENCY EMPLOYEES MAKE NOVEL DEMAND: BETTER MANAGEMENT
by Joe Shea
American Reporter Correspondent
WASHINGTON -- In what may be a first for federal workers, members
of the American Foreign Service Assn. (AFSA) demonstrated in Washington
Thursday not for higher pay or greater benefits or improved working
conditions, but for better management of the U.S. Agency for International
Development (AID).
The agency that funds overseas development projects recently laid
off several hundred AFSA workers.
At high noon, over 150 Foreign Service and Civil Service employees
demonstrated outside AID administrator Brian Atwood's windows, carrying
placards as they chanted catchy slogans like "Better Management Now",
"Walk the Talk", "Empowerment" and "Decentralization".
"We are here to promote better management," said F.A. (Tex) Harris,
president of the AFSA, in an enthusiastically received kick-off speech at
the protest.
"A small number of senior USAID managers are making bad choices by
not consulting career employees and managers. The present top-down cabal
of management has to be replaced by a participatory process as directed by
Vice President Gore," Harris told the demonstrators.
"Mr. Harris has been critical of Larry Byrne, assistant
administrator for management, for spending $65 million on a computer
management system and then laying off Foreign Service and Civil Service
employees. Two hundred were dismissed last month," said widely read
"Embassy Row" columnist James Morrison of The Washington Times.
"They were looking for someone to blame ... I think we really feel
the pain they feel," an AID spokseman responded.
"What is needed is not Kleenex and empathy, but fundamental changes
in the way AID is managed to empower all its professionals to do their
jobs, not just the centralization of power in a few hands. None of us is
as smart as all of us," Harris retorted.
Frank Miller, a vice president of AFSA who represents AID
employees, said AFSA and U.S.
Foreign Service and Civil Service employees want to work together with
management to get the agency "back on track.
"There is much that needs to be accomplished. Let's get on with
development," Mr. Miller said.
The rally ended peacefully an hour after it started, just in time
for the demonstrators to return to jobs at the State Dept. and other
agencies. AFSA is the labor union and professional representative for the
23,000 Foreign Service professionals serving around the world.
The Washington Post ran a large photo caption on its Federal Page
of the AFSA/AID demonstration. Protestors said "it was worth a thousand
words."
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