Union Lawsuit Challenges NASA National Security Rebrand

The International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers is suing the Trump administration over its attempt to end union representation at NASA and rebrand the agency as an intelligence and national security organization.

The IFPTE lawsuit, filed earlier this month, challenges the White House’s assertion that national security is NASA’s “primary function,” adding that NASA has been collectively bargaining with IFPTE local unions for over 60 years and “at no time has such bargaining ever been questioned as inconsistent with national security.” It argues that President Donald Trump’s actions exceed his authority and unfairly target the union, which has publicly protested the administration’s cuts at the agency. IFPTE represents approximately 6,000 employees at NASA.

The lawsuit follows an August executive order that bars some agencies — including NASA and parts of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — from engaging in collective bargaining on the grounds that negotiating union contracts could hinder agencies’ ability to operate effectively and quickly, creating a national security risk.

Trump’s order describes “intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work” as “a primary function” of NASA and other agencies. An accompanying fact sheet states that NASA “develops and operates advanced air and space technologies, like satellite, communications, and propulsion systems, that are critical for U.S. national security.”

Trump issued a related executive order in March directing most federal agencies — including the National Science Foundation, most of the Department of Energy, and parts of the Department of Health and Human Services — to terminate their union contracts, citing a narrow legal provision that allows the president to suspend collective bargaining in the interest of national security.

Trump’s March order prompted swift legal challenges from multiple unions representing federal workers, including IFPTE, which filed a lawsuit on behalf of employees at the Department of Defense in July. On Sept. 30, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration from terminating the collective bargaining rights of DOD workers represented by IFPTE, saying the president had overstepped his authority. Some agencies not covered by the injunction have reportedly terminated union contracts in line with President Trump’s orders.

Other lawsuits filed in response to the August executive order are ongoing, including one representing around 4,000 employees at NOAA’s National Weather Service and the Office of Satellite Products and Operations in the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service.

The Trump administration’s framing of NASA as an intelligence and national security agency has drawn criticism from space policy experts, including Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society, who told Politico that the public’s relationship with NASA will be “fundamentally changed for the worse if NASA is seen as an extension of the national security apparatus, rather than a projection of peaceful exploration and shared values.”

NASA was created by a 1958 law that designated it as a civilian agency and specified that “activities peculiar to or primarily associated with the development of weapons systems, military operations, or the defense of the United States (including the research and development necessary to make effective provision for the defense of the United States) shall be the responsibility of, and shall be directed by, the Department of Defense.” The law further states that U.S. space activities “should be devoted to peaceful purposes for the benefit of mankind.”

The creation of the Space Force in 2019 as a military branch responsible for protecting U.S. interests in space also prompted discussion about NASA’s role as a civilian agency for science and exploration — a distinction that is reiterated on the Space Force website. Some security experts argue, however, that NASA’s mission is central to U.S. national security interests. Peter Garretson, a senior fellow in defense studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, wrote in a journal article last year that “NASA is a national security organization whose duties include ensuring the pre-eminence of the United States. Its job is not to build weapons or engage in conflict—but to pursue American strategic objectives below the threshold of armed conflict.”

NASA’s ties to the Department of Defense have separately drawn criticism from Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), the top Democrat on the House Science Committee. In a letter to acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy last month, Lofgren wrote that she has “serious concerns about NASA’s developing relationship with the U.S. Air Force that will need to be addressed.”

“NASA must remain focused on its mission as a civil space agency and a scientific agency,” wrote Lofgren. “It cannot permit unrelated priorities to distract it from its mission or impair its ability to achieve its ambitious objectives in space for the benefit of humanity here on Earth.”