GESTA Storms Capital Hill

By Steven Hard, GESTA Executive Vice-President

GESTA President Tryshanda Moton (second from right) and Executive Vice President Steven Hard (right) met with Senator Mark Kelly (center) during Legislative Advocacy Week 2025.

GESTA President Tryshanda (Trysh) Moton and I met with several lawmakers and their staff on Capital Hill as part of IFPTE’s Legislative Advocacy Week, Wednesday February 12th - Thursday February 13th, 2025. A full recap of these busy two days and our conversations with lawmakers and staff is below.

GESTA kicked off the first day with ‘Coffee with Senator Kelly’ where Trysh and I met with Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) along with NASA IFPTE local leaders Ann Culler (NASA Headquarters), and  Samantha Yousef (Glenn Research Center/GRC, Local 28). This event included a larger group of mixed constituents, so conversations were kept short. Senator Kelly spoke to NASA IFPTE members briefly about the importance of the Artemis mission and the challenges to be overcome. He also applauded the IFPTE Local 2 Plate Printers Union veterans for their service and spoke to young US Air Force Cadets about their experiences. On our way out, Senator Kelly was nice enough to take a photo with the NASA IFPTE team. 

Wednesday morning GESTA (along with NASA GRC/IFPTE Local 28) also met with a staff member of Representative Marcy Kaptur’s office (D-OH), TJ Lodermilk. The tone of the meeting was set by our opening statement that in the past our ‘pitch’ for legislative advocacy week had focused on issues like the 30% pay gap between the federal sector and private industry, and the argument that Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) should be reformed, but that this year there were bigger, more imminent threats to federal workers jobs to discuss.

Later that afternoon, GESTA met with a staff member of Representative Jamie Raskin’s (D-MD) office, Joe Tesfaye, to discuss the rapid-fire nature of the recent Executive Orders (EO) and their disruptive impacts to the day-to-day work that we do for the American people. We also brought up knowledge and personnel retention issues at NASA due the pauses in Pathways conversions, hiring freezes with a 1:4 hiring to attrition rate limit, the cutting of STEM and DEIA programs, mass firing of employees, and the road-block that had been put up due to a compromised Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA)'s ability to hear unfair labor practice (ULP) complaints and appeals. We also flagged our urgent concern about the conflict of interest between Elon Musk's Space X (a prime contractor to NASA) and indications that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) had access to NASA IT systems and data.

Thursday started with a meeting with Pamela Whitney, the Democratic Staff Director for the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics of the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. Our conversation began with our reminder that GESTA bargaining unit employees (BUEs) work for the American people to enrich and better their lives by pushing the boundaries of scientific knowledge and technology. One topic of our conversation was how to make the most productive advocacy "noise", potentially by engaging with the most impacted groups and collecting and sharing their stories. We also explained how remote workers were being notified their remote work agreements were to be cancelled and they would need to report back to Goddard, or another agency facility. We explained that in some cases it appeared management was not honoring the 60 day notice required by these agreements. Lastly, we pointed out that the federal employee budget is very small compared to the total federal budget, representing a relatively small cost savings, and that Congress  should be using strategic appropriations instead of EOs to shape federal worker issues.

Next, GESTA met with Diana Fontaine, Legislative Assistant for Representative Glenn Ivey’s office (D-MD). Our conversation started with Diana sharing how ashamed she was of the current administration and the intentional confusion and disruption they were causing. GESTA explained how it didn’t seem worthwhile to file a ULP case given the dysfunctional FLRA. We also argued that DOGE lacks accountability in its access to sensitive agency data and the  conflicts of interest with Elon Musk having access to that data. We spoke about the Executive Orders (EOs) in our email inboxes on a weekly basis and the EO impacts to NASA that may take decades to repair. We described the spirit of protections related to gender identity being eliminated, starting with the removal of signs for gender neutral bathrooms and a ban on the display of pride flags. We explained how all of this was drastically lowering morale. At this point, Congressman Ivey came out of his office and joined us at the conference room table and GESTA discussed our recent issues with the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) agency head review and how our CBA had already passed through legal review where a few minor details were changed, but that the Labor Relations Officer (LRO) had ultimately been forced to reject our CBA (which we had been negotiating for over 5 years). We noted that as we had witnessed in the first Trump Administration, the current Administration is circumventing federal employees’ statutory collective bargaining rights and repealing existing (CBAs). GESTA asked for Congress to block any sweeping efforts to outlaw union rights on national security grounds and demand the Executive Branch adhere to existing law that supports collective bargaining and the role of federal employee unions. Ivey stated that the courts are trying to stand up for what’s right but that he was unsure of how long that will take to happen. “We have two years, then we have to take back the House”, he said. “There is so much in litigation right now, we will be tied up in the courts for years. We need to hold the line.”

Our next meeting was with Energy and Environmental Policy Advisor for Representative Stoney Hoyer’s (D-MD) office, Lydia Angel. There, GESTA explained how federal employees get up and go to work to make the lives of the American people better. As such, these attacks on the civil service are not isolated to government employees but impact all Americans, even if there may be a delay until the broader public feels those impacts. GESTA also discussed our concerns about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) related activities being eliminated and stripped from contracts and employee performance plans. We again brought up our concerns with Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and DOGE access to our systems, their potential ability to review performance plans for DEI-related activities, and direct our supervisors to change  information. We argued that at the very least our supervisors need to be the ones to review performance plans and make their own indication as to what activities are directly related to DEI. Then they should be having a discussion with the employee to get their concurrence on what activities will be replaced by the support they were providing previously. Other issues discussed with Glen Ivey’s office were also brought up here.

GESTA continued on to meet with Legislative Council, Andrew Donlon, who works in Congresswoman April McClain Delaney’s (D-MD) office. In this meeting, concerns and issues related to the “Fork in the Road” offer were discussed. Andrew was interested in understanding the number and distribution of employees who took the offer. He was also surprised to learn that employees who responded with, well anything, including out-of-office replies, questions, clarifications, or comments, were in danger of being listed as wanting to resign. GESTA also expressed our concerns about OPM contacting employees directly with this offer without going through the unions, which is an illegal by-pass. With the FLRA currently in its dysfunctional state, any recourse from the regulatory agency seems hopeless, but we noted we were still filing ULP complaints regardless. We also pointed out the alarming fact that several NASA Procedural Requirements (NPRs) that relate to anti-harassment, nondiscrimination, Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO), STEM, and reasonable accommodations, among other policies, were recently cancelled with seemingly no plans for replacement. We also mentioned the issues with grants being pulled affecting universities and research hospitals. The meeting concluded with Andrew requesting any stories about impacts to our work at NASA GSFC and to retaining our leadership in space technology and science. 

GESTA also met with the Legislative Director of Senator Shelley Moore Capito’s office (R-WV), JT Jezierski. This meeting was a bit contentious as JT played devil’s advocate for most of the meeting. We discussed how the Trump Executive Order (EO) to create a Schedule P/C (similar to the first Trump Administration’s EO on Schedule F) allowed for the possibility of hundreds of thousands of non-partisan federal civil service roles being converted into at-will positions. We asked for his office to support the Saving the Civil Service Act to prevent turning the federal government into a patronage system, and he said they would certainly consider this. GESTA also brought up the issue that in recent years, we’ve seen efforts in Congress to limit or eliminate Official Time (paid duty time allowed for federal employees who serve as union representatives) justified by mischaracterizing the purposes for which Official Time is used and confusing the public about the value of Official Time for federal agencies, the federal workforce, and the public. We urged that Congress should protect Official Time from any legislation and oversight efforts to weaken it.

Later in the afternoon Thursday, GESTA and other NASA IFPTE Locals met with the Space and Innovation Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee staff, Kreston Barron and David Turner. We discussed how some in the American public may have a negative perception of the civil service due to misinformation. We also discussed the impacts to the public when civil servant jobs are lost, such as the loss of Social Security checks, Environmental Protection Agency protections, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau investigations, and Veterans Affairs claims, among other services, too many to list. We also discussed the federal budget was being held hostage by threats of a government shutdown if the administration did not get what it wants. We also discussed many of the other issues mentioned from prior meetings as common themes had developed throughout our legislative advocacy campaign!

The last meeting for GESTA on Capitol Hill was with Senior Policy Advisor Madeline Daly from the office of Senator Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD). We discussed what democratic members of Congress can do as a minority, including fighting in the courts, getting ground work done, and talking to GSFC leadership. We also discussed the importance of communicating the attacks on federal workers to our neighbors and our communities. Madeline was very interested in any stories we could share about illegal occurrences and any stories of individuals (anonymously) and programs who were being impacted. We brought up the issues experienced by remote workers receiving blanket denials for exemptions to in-person work requirements, and transitioning teleworkers applying for reasonable accommodations and other exemptions, some of which were getting denied. We noted how other NASA centers were passing exemption requests up to the NASA agency level and getting approval, while GSFC seemed to be approving at the center or directorate level, something not authorized by the EO. We explained that most employees within the commuting area are fine with coming on-site, but wish to be treated like professionals and be afforded the telework flexibilities that are allowed by law and proven to increase productivity in the workplace. We also described the ‘lame duck’ CBA revocations and the impact of the EOs to our CBA denial. We also discussed the challenges to grants and contacts with partnering universities like University of Maryland. As the meeting came to a close, we agreed to keep their office updated with regular communications to do what we can to ensure GSFC has the appropriate stability and personnel to sustain our mission.

Legislative week concluded with a building dedication and a reception at the new IFPTE office, where IFPTE President Biggs closed with these words: “this year’s conference comes at a very pivotal time in our nation’s history, as we have an administration that is attacking IFPTE membership, particularly our federal members, on all fronts and, sadly, illegally – fortunately IFPTE’s members were here on Capitol Hill this week to inform their lawmakers of these attacks and implore them to exercise their oversight responsibilities of the executive branch.” 

IFPTE Secretary-Treasurer Gay Henson also weighed in, noting that, “while we are all laser-focused on mitigating the damage coming from the administration while also pushing the other legislative concerns impacting IFPTE members, which there are many, the week-long conference was very productive and full of Solidarity among the Locals. This week’s conference and hill meetings are just the start of our yearlong efforts to push the legislative priorities of our members on Capitol Hill.”