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Being able to witness the Artemis II voyage to the Moon, led by the exemplary Artemis II crew (including mission specialist Christina Koch, who began her career at NASA Goddard) was an awe-inspiring and for many, life-defining event. The mission captured the world’s attention, not only because of the technical and scientific feats NASA was able to accomplish in returning humans to orbit and observe the Moon, but because of the rare human and cosmic perspectives the mission brought to us. The journey was a very timely reminder of the importance of NASA’s role in space exploration and space science for the US and the entire world. We can all feel pride in belonging to such a NASA team. On the occasion of the Artemis II launch, IFPTE leadership and GESTA’s President spoke on the historic journey, and emphasized the role of NASA’s federal workforce in making the mission possible.
GESTA recently helped a GESTA member who informed us that they had received a proposed letter of removal from the federal service. GESTA’s grievance committee jumped into action and met with our colleague to gather the facts and to hear their side of the story. We helped this member collect their thoughts and formulate an effective written response that refuted each claim against them. In the end, GESTA was able to assist our member in negotiating a deal which allowed them to resign with a clean record in lieu of the original proposed termination.
Given the ongoing significance of facilities budgets to NASA Goddard, we want to highlight some of the published data on the funding amounts involved in sustaining Goddard operations and facilities over the years.
On April 3rd, the Administration released the 2027 President’s “skinny” budget, and several days later NASA released the full NASA FY27 Presidential budget request (PBR). You can download and read the budget request from NASA’s website. The FY27 budget request provides an eerie feeling of déjà vu. Like the FY26 PBR it again proposes existential cuts to NASA and to NASA’s Science budget specifically.
We want to make sure our dues-paying GESTA members are aware of one of the additional benefits of your union membership through our international Union, IFPTE which includes access to discounts on financial services, health, travel, shopping and other benefits through Union Plus. You can find more details of the benefits at the Union Plus Website: www.unionplus.org. From the website you can create an account to begin accessing your benefits. When creating an account select “IFPTE” as your union from the drop-down menu.
A lawsuit, which GESTA has joined as a plaintiff, has been filed in response to the Goddard research library closure. The motion seeks emergency relief. Greenbelt News and Review recently published a story on the library closure and lawsuit and interviewed attorney Zachary Weil who represents GESTA and the other plaintiffs. In the article Weil speaks to some of the lawsuit arguments.
GESTA membership recently passed a resolution to condemn the killing of Alex Pretti, a fellow federal employee and federal union member, by federal immigration agents. You can read the GESTA resolution text here. As noted, copies of this resolution are in the process of being sent to the international leadership of IFPTE, members of Congress representing GESTA districts, other stakeholders, and the press
The Trump administration and the Office of Personal Management (OPM) have proposed new regulations that would limit the ability for NASA and other federal workers to obtain high performance ratings. A Government Executive article covers these proposed regulation changes which would require a forced distribution on employees ratings. The article describes the numerous issues with such a change noting that “agency representatives across government… nearly universally panned it in internal discussions, warning that its adoption would decrease employee performance and abandon merit systems principles.” The proposed changes are now out for public comments with public comments due by March 26th. A strategy for these comments is to raise multiple unique concerns that will require a response. We encourage you to submit a comment here by clicking the green ‘Submit an Public Comment’ at the top of the page. For guidance on what makes a good comment on proposed rule changes, you can see this document (relevant advice starting on page 2) from the Federal Union Network.
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