Greeting dozens of new participants in this year's JEDI Institute on June 28, FA President Dante Morelli explained the connections between the labor and social justice movements. (photo by Cynthia Eaton)

It’s been a dry, hot summer.

The grass in our towns and communities need water in order to sustain growth. The FA, however, has been pouring water on the roots of your union all summer.

The most pressing issue at the forefront of our union is contract negotiations. We are currently negotiating with the college and the county to work toward a fair contract for our members. Over the summer, the negotiating team pored through the negotiations surveys from our membership and served on committees in order to build a contract proposal that serves all of our members.

A team of six attended NYSUT’s Local Action Project (LAP) program conference in July, led by our LAP coordinator and EC representative, Joan Cook. For this three-year program, NYSUT helps fund various projects and initiatives that grow our union and strengthen our membership. You will be hearing more about LAP over the next three years in The WORD.

Also in July, several officers and one of the elected delegates attended the AFT Convention held in Boston. The biggest news coming out of this year’s convention is the merging of American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and our longtime national parent union, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). AFT President Randi Weingarten called this partnership a “game changer.” AAUP president Irene Mulvey discussed the importance of this powerful partnership, stating that AAUP works in the “defense of academic freedom and our promotion of shared governance.”

President Mulvey further noted, “Academic freedom means those who teach have control of what they teach and how they teach. Scholars can follow their research where it leads them without interference and faculty will not be disciplined for their intramural speech about the running of their institution or extramural speech that has nothing to do with their area of expertise. We have been defending this for 107 years.”

Together AFT and AAUP are a more powerful union, she continued: “The combination of AAUP’s academic expertise and AFT’s power and might and resources and reach is a winning combination for organizing academic workers.”

Finally, the summer concluded with the New York State AFL-CIO endorsement conference. Delegates from across New York State, representing the diverse unions of teachers, nurses, trade unionists and laborers assembled in New York City to endorse candidates for NYS Assembly and Senate, Governor, and Congress and U.S. Senate. See the list of AFL-CIO as well as NYSUT endorsements in this issue.

Our national union has grown as we forge relationships with AAUP. Our local union has also grown with our state union so we can better serve members.