Exclusive | NASA wasted $400K of your money on union time last year: ‘Ripping off taxpayers’

NASA spent more than $400,000 on taxpayer-funded union time over the 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2024, leading a GOP senator who has been probing federal expenditures on non-government work to accuse space agency employees of “ripping off taxpayers by an astronomical amount.”

The $417,798 outlay can be traced to 30 workers who spent at least 4,078 hours over fiscal year 2024 on union-related activities, according to data obtained by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), chair of the Senate DOGE caucus, and shared with The Post.

Union time encompasses various activities — such as labor meetings, representing employees who face disciplinary action, union-sponsored training activities and preparing for collective bargaining negotiations.

“If federal employees want to space out from their jobs,” Ernst told The Post, “they need to refund the American people for every last penny.”

Although the amount of NASA taxpayer dollars set aside for union time has been on a downward trajectory, slipping from $477,204 in fiscal year 2023 and $641,037 in fiscal year 2019, Ernst argued that even one cent is too much.

“Taxpayer-funded union time needs to end,” she told The Post.

While NASA’s spending on union time has been trending down, which has not been the case for other federal agencies, its budget has decreased as well.

In 2024, NASA was allocated $24.88 billion, down from $25.4 billion in fiscal year 2023. If adjusted for inflation, NASA’s current budget is also less than what it received in 2019.

NASA’s dominance in the US space sector has slipped over recent decades due to the explosion of private-sector actors such as SpaceX, one of its top contractors.

In the past, NASA had been the most prominent US organization tasked with developing rockets to send astronauts and non-human assets into space. After the space shuttle program ended in 2011, NASA began turning to private companies to fly into orbit so that it could focus on deeper space activities.

NASA has forged ahead with the Space Launch System, its super heavy-lift vehicle needed to send astronauts to the moon or Mars. But that program has been bogged down by cost overruns and delays. SpaceX has made significant strides with its own super heavy-lift system, Starship, which, unlike SLS, is reusable.

Under the Federal Service Labor Management Relations Statute, federal unions are restricted from negotiating over benefits and pay, which are set by federal regulations and law.

“They’re left negotiating for tedious things that are of zero or negative benefit to taxpayers,” Rachel Greszler, a senior research fellow on workforce and public finance at the Heritage Foundation, previously told The Post about federal unions.

“This includes things like the height of cubicle panels, securing designated smoking areas on otherwise smoke-free campuses, and the right to wear Spandex at work.”

Back in 2019, the last year the Office of Personnel Management published comprehensive data on taxpayer-funded union time, it found the entire federal government had spent at least $135 million on it.

OPM then stopped tracking that data, which has inspired Ernst’s review.

Back in December, the Iowan blasted out requests to various government agencies for data on their taxpayer-funded union time expenses. NASA was among the earliest to respond.

NASA is represented by two major federal unions, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers and the American Federation of Government Employees.

The Post reached out to both those unions and NASA for additional information and comment.