Keith’s note: A slight bit of maybe not good – but somewhat less bad news: on 27 March OPM issued Guidance on Executive Order Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Programs. “This order invoked the President’s authority under 5 U.S.C § 7103(b)(1) and 22 U.S.C. § 4103(b) to exempt agencies and agency subdivisions from the provisions of the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute and the Foreign Service Labor-Management Relations Statute (individually and collectively, the FSLMRS). The President’s Executive Order directs that the FSLMRS will no longer apply to the following agencies and agency subdivisions (collectively, the “covered agencies and subdivisions”): — With a long list agencies BUT NOT NASA. No mention of NIST or NOAA either but NSF is listed. I have no idea what these omissions mean. But for now …

Keith’s note: A lawsuit has been filed by a group of employee unions in the U.S. District Court in D.C. against the current administration and its appointees regarding ongoing personnel actions.

• “The Unions bring this action to protect the workers they represent from the Executive Branch’s attempts to dismantle the federal government through the mass firings of hundreds of thousands of employees (those who are considered “nonessential” for purposes of a government shutdown and those who are in probationary status) and a pressure campaign on federal workers to quit their jobs through a “deferred resignation program.”
• I am not a lawyer but I find it odd that one of the names of Federal Agency and Department appointees mentioned as being a defendant is “MAKENZIE LYSTRUP, M.D.” For starters she has a Ph.D in astrophysics – not an M.D. Second she is the NASA GSFC Center Director. She does not run NASA. She is told precisely what to do in these personnel matters by NASA HQ. Her direction comes from Janet Petro, the “Acting” Administrator of NASA. Neither of these people are political appointees. Petro is also told precisely what to do – apparently by Darren Bossie, the Trump Administration’s White House liaison to NASA. Just wanted to clear that up, Union folks. Accuracy counts.

Organized labor attacks Obama’s space plan, Orlando Sentinel “Add organized labor to the voices angry at President Barack Obama’s decision to scrap NASA’s moon program. In a letter sent to Obama on Feb. 4, R. Thomas Buffenbarger, international president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, said the White House idea to outsource flying astronauts into low Earth orbit would cost jobs, not create them.” Time for Action, […]