State and National Affiliations

As noted on Dante Morelli's President's Desk introduction, the FA is proud to be part of a robust and growing union movement in our nation. In odd-numbered years, the FA sends up to nine elected delegates to the NYSUT Representative Assembly (once a year) and to the AFT Convention (once every two years). The elected delegates include the six FA officers as well as three additionally elected delegates:

  1. President Dante Morelli
  2. Executive Vice President Courtney Brewer
  3. Secretary Cynthia Eaton
  4. Treasurer Pete DiGregorio
  5. Grievance Officer Kevin McCoy
  6. Adjunct Coordinator Kim Ng Southard
  7. Delegate Joan Cook
  8. Delegate Fabio Montella
  9. Delegate Andrew Stone

Below is a basic introduction to our state and national parent unions.

NYSUT Local 39045 — Our state parent union is New York State United Teachers (NYSUT). NYSUT represents more than 600,000 people who work in or are retired from New York's schools, colleges, and healthcare facilities. NYSUT includes classroom teachers, college and university faculty and professional staff, school bus drivers, custodians, secretaries, cafeteria workers, teacher assistants and aides, nurses, and healthcare technicians. NYSUT is a federation of more than 1,200 local unions, each representing its own members.

Within NYSUT, there are a number of election districts, or EDs, that represents and advocate for various and diverse constituencies. All of the SUNY community colleges that are affiliated with NYSUT belong to Election District 39, or ED39 (this includes the vast majority of the 30 community colleges within the SUNY system, but not all of them). The FA is the largest of the community college locals within NYSUT.

Every fall, academic unionists from all across the state, including from New York City, come together at the NYSUT Community College Conference. Perennially we hear from members that this is one of the best conferences for our members to attend because they get to meet fellow community college educators, both classroom and nonclassroom, from other locals and compare notes about what's happening at our home institutions. NYSUT Community College Conference attendees attend a variety of workshops where we learn with and from one another about topics relating to both unionism and academic work. If you're an FA member and would like to attend, contact FA President Dante Morelli.  

AFT Local 3038 — Our national parent unions are the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the National Education Association (NEA), and most recently the American Association of University Professionals (AAUP), and on a larger national and international level, with the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). Each of these organizations work diligently at the national level to fight for the economic, social, and politicial conditions that improve the lives of educators and unionists. 

Finally, locally, we are members of the Long Island Federation of Labor and of the Suffolk County Organization of Public Employees (SCOPE), which represents all eleven Suffolk County unions.