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Cynthia Eaton
One of our brand new members very tactfully acknowledged it during the new member bagel brunch on October 25. "There has already been a small issue in my employment here, and the FA has already worked with the college to resolve it." This member was so gracious to mention this fact as we went around the table introducing ourselves—making plain in a single statement what we spent the next hour or so reviewing: union membership matters, and it often matters the most when you least expect it. The FA has been talking with members about the value of membership for years now, and it's imperative for new members to recognize this critical fact.
Matt Pappas helped set them off in a positive direction by sharing some of the many good things the FA brings to our members' work lives, including health benefits, contract enforcement, financial planning workshops, sabbaticals, promotion assistance, conflict mediation, NYSUT and AFT benefits, political action and community outreach and social justice projects. As an astronomy professor, Pappas pointed out that his personal hero Albert Einstein was a founding member of the Princeton Federation of Teachers Local 552 and had signed the local's charter in 1938. “I consider it important, indeed urgently necessary," Einstein once said, "for intellectual workers to get together, both to protect their own economic status and… to secure their influence in the political field."
Pappas also provided the new members in attendance an overview of the promotion process, explained how to read the salary schedule, discussed the need for member engagement in the life of the union and shared the many ways to stay in touch with FA events and activities. The overall message was that the FA is an integral part of work at SCCC for our faculty. We are the FA, and the FA is us. "This is who the FA is," Pappas said. "We work together, and we work hard every day to represent, protect and advocate for our fellow members from the moment they're hired to the moment they retire." |
