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GESTA and our international union IFPTE have been collecting impacts and concerns about the ongoing building closures at the Goddard campus. We are sharing here a briefing document of our understanding of the status of these closures as of November 14th and our continuing concerns, including more details of some of the missions and capabilities impacted:
GESTA IFPTE Goddard Building Closure Brief NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is the largest group of scientists, technicians and engineers in the US who develop Earth and space science flight missions. Below is GESTA's understanding of the situation at Goddard as of November 1, 2025. GESTA members and Goddard employees deserve better treatment from their employer.
On October 15th, a judge in the US District Court ruled in a lawsuit brought by federal labor unions, that recent layoffs by the Trump administration during the shutdown were illegal, and placed at least a temporary halt on those actions and any future Reduction and Force (RIF) actions across the federal government impacting employees under those unions during a shutdown. In response to this ruling, NASA Chief Human Capital Officer, Kelly Elliot made a declaration in court on October 17th that NASA would abide by this ruling. On October 21st the lawsuit was amended to add additional unions and plaintiffs, including IFPTE, the international union under which GESTA is a local. And on October 22nd, the judge in the case ordered that the temporary restraining order be expanded to include those additional agencies and unions. The restraining order was extended by the judge “indefinitely” on October 28th. The bottom line is that under this amended lawsuit and restraining order, NASA is now prevented from carrying out RIF actions impacting GESTA or other NASA IFPTE employees during this shutdown. Note the direction by the judge in this case is that this ruling applies even though NASA and other agencies may no longer be recognizing union bargaining rights. If interested, you can follow this case on Court Listener.
On October 8, 2025, our parent union, IFPTE, filed a lawsuit in District Court against the Trump Administration’s August 28th executive order which targeted NASA and other federal agencies, revoking union bargaining rights for GESTA and other NASA unions by claiming that NASA’s primary purpose was national security. This IFPTE lawsuit argues that not only is NASA’s purpose clearly not primarily national security, but that NASA unions were illegally targeted in retaliation for pushing back against the administration's actions. The lawsuit names as plaintiffs, President Trump and Acting NASA administrator Sean Duffy and asks the implementation of the Executive Order be halted and for NASA union rights to be restored. You can read the full complaint here and IFPTE’s press release on the lawsuit here. The lawsuit has also been covered in the press. We will keep our members posted on this ongoing litigation which directly impacts their rights. Members can also track the status of this case on Court Listener, where many of the case documents, including any future rulings will be posted.
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