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Take action by reaching out to your Congressional leaders to encourage them to pass a bipartisan government funding bill which ends the current shutdown, while protecting Congress’s constitutional powers to set agency funding levels. As IFPTE notes on their action page: “a bipartisan CR needs to include legislative language protecting congressionally approved funding levels from being withheld by the Administration and prevent a unilateral implementation of the President’s budget contrary to Congressional intent. The Administration has already used unprecedented tactics such as "pocket rescissions" to withhold funds until they expire, effectively nullifying bipartisan funding agreements. Without legislative safeguards, any 2026 funding deal risks being ignored or overturned, which completely undermines the Constitutional authority of Congress to set and approve spending levels.”
You can send a letter directly via IFPTE’s action page: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-congress-stop-the-shutdown-get-back-to-work-and-pass-a-bipartisan-funding-bill?source=direct_link& During the week of Sept 15th- 19th, our parent union IFPTE arranged several meetings between union members and Democratic and Republican Senators, Representatives, and their staff. Union members from IFPTE locals and AFGE locals from 4 different NASA centers took leave and traveled to Washington, DC to attend these meetings and actively represent members. In total, around 20 NASA union members attended 35 separate meetings.
Thank you to GESTA members and friends who came out to participate in recent outreach events to the local Greenbelt community over the Labor Day weekend! These events included tabling at the festival under the “NASA Needs Help” effort, and marching in the Labor Day parade under the GESTA banner.
Based on guidance from IFPTE, we plan to continue to take action and represent our members in the following ways:
Term Employee Right Preserved Thanks to the efforts of AVP Matt Joplin and the Term, Pathways, and Probationary Employees Committee led by Margaret Samuels, a Goddard term employee whose term was expiring pushed back on HR and will be getting their severance pay. Although in most cases term employees do not receive severance pay, this employee came directly from a prior permanent federal service position which entitled them to severance. If any term employees find themselves in a similar situation please reach out to GESTA for advice or representation. This type of representative action does not rely on management upholding our Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). Engineering Directorate Management Thwarted in Preventing Outside Employment GESTA was recently able to assist members in getting outside employment approvals. As one member told us, “The union is a massive help when the issue is just one holdout in management. I'd been stonewalled getting my outside employment form signed for months because someone in ETD management didn't want to sign. Within a week of the union applying pressure, everyone who was requesting outside employment had our forms signed, and the manager… was taken out of the process. Even without a CBA, I think we could help each other in a similar situation.” GESTA Members Speak with Congress Six GESTA members spoke with Congressional staffers about the impacts of the DRP at Goddard and the importance of continued funding. We’re very proud of our members for volunteering their time and sharing their perspectives at this event. GESTA members will also attend a NASA-wide legislative advocacy week Sept 15-19th, where union delegates from NASA centers across the nation will visit with staffers in Washington, DC. Both of these events were organized by our parent union IFPTE. More details available here. These Congressional advocacy actions and rights are also entirely independent of our CBA. GESTA works directly with Congressional appropriators to advocate for NASA and the NASA workforce on a regular basis. Earlier this spring, GESTA President Trysh Moton and GESTA Executive Vice President, Steve Hard collected a list of impacts due to potential cuts or cancellations to Goddard science programs from Goddard employees. With the help of Legislative Director Faraz Khan of IFPTE, this effort helped shape the Senate and House Appropriations Committee’s language for the 2026 Appropriations Bill. Over the last month IFPTE also worked with Senator Chris Van Hollen’s staff to provide input on a letter that Senator Van Hollen sent to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) regarding impoundment.
Last week, our parent union IFPTE also arranged for several active GESTA members to meet with the Senate Commerce Democrats’ oversight team. The purpose of these interviews was to collect information directly from Goddard employees on their experiences and the impacts to programs and/or the workforce due to the loss of personnel since the Deferred Resignation Program (DRP) has been implemented. The goals were to help bring attention to Congress on the gaps and issues that NASA’s pre-compliance with the President’s Budget Request has caused and on the importance of funding science and R&D. If you’d like to get involved in future efforts of this nature, we encourage you to join a GESTA committee (contact us to express your interest) and we encourage you to sign up for the Planetary Society’s Day of Action. GESTA has released a statement on the intended closure of the Goddard Visitor Center on October 1st:
GESTA Calls for Immediate Intervention to Halt Closure of the NASA Goddard Visitor Center  NASA supporters attend the "NASA Needs Help!" protest June 30th at NASA HQ. It seems that every time we gather for a town hall there's more bad news. Every branch meeting is a lot more "we don't know" than answers to our questions. My inbox had at least one "I took retirement/DRP" email in it every day last week. There's a lot to be stressed about, a lot to feel justifiably sad and angry about these days. I want to emphasize, though, that the union is in it with you for the long haul. Beyond the horizon of policies we can only guess at, GESTA and their parent union, IFPTE, will continue to lawyer up, show up, and do what they can in the situation at hand. Sometimes that can be invisible to the general workforce, so I wanted to emphasize some wins recently.
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