[ 2025 NYSUT Representative Assembly ]

Sandra Carner-Shafran is a powerhouse unionist who has dedicated nearly 40 years to education and activism. Whether it’s knocking on doors, working phone banks, attending rallies, lobbying in Albany, volunteering at food banks, or advocating for women’s rights, Carner-Shafran has proven time and again her profound and unwavering commitment to her union and her community.

Since 1982, Carner-Shafran proudly served New York’s most vulnerable children as a teacher aide and then a certified teaching assistant in the special education program for Washington-Saratoga-Warren-Hamilton-Essex BOCES.

She has consistently worked to promote the voices of school-related professionals. The veteran SRP has spent decades fighting for fair wages, safe working conditions, professional training opportunities, and respect and dignity on the job. Carner-Shafran has also devoted her time to encouraging other SRPs to become more engaged and active in their unions.

“When you’re involved in NYSUT and your union, you can be that much stronger and that much better at your job,” she said. A former longtime NYSUT Board member, Carner-Shafran’s many other roles have included serving on several NYSUT committees and the American Federation of Teachers Program and Policy Council. She is a board member for the Greater Capital Region Teacher Center and president of the Saratoga Labor Council.

Throughout her impressive career, Carner-Shafran has received several accolades including AFT’s Albert Shanker Pioneer Award, NYSUT’s SRP of the Year Award, NYSUT Legacy Award, and a nomination for the NEA Education Support Professional of the Year. She remains active in retirement and now enjoys doing the work of the union with her husband, Roy.

“I plan to be here for a long time fighting the fight. I can’t wait to see what’s next.”

A self-described “Harlem girl, born and bred,” Zina Burton-Myrick has transformed from reluctant union participant to powerful advocate during her 37-year education career. As UFT Manhattan Borough Representative for District 5, she represents educators across 27 Central Harlem schools while continuing to serve as a literacy coach at PS 154.

Burton-Myrick commands attention with her vibrant energy and unwavering commitment to collective power. “I love to say that there is strength in numbers,” she explains. “It’s a puzzle, and everybody has a piece … if we all get together, we have a wonderfully complete puzzle.”

Her community activism extends well beyond contract enforcement. Colleagues call her “the bag lady” for constantly arriving with resources — from $1 shirts to toys, coats, and food donations. She secures classroom grants, organizes community drives, and involves students in service projects, teaching them the importance of giving back.

Her dedication stems from personal experience: “I could have been another statistic … but people saw something in me and poured into me.” This philosophy guides her approach to education and mentorship, emphasizing that every student has potential that simply needs nurturing.

Burton-Myrick’s crowning achievement, the Paraprofessional Academy, exemplifies her commitment to building leadership pipelines. This initiative provides training and support to help paras become certified teachers. “We have great paraprofessionals … Let’s give them the supports, the resources that they need to become teachers.”

Burton-Myrick embodies the legacy of strong women leaders like Sandy Feldman, whom she first encountered at a UFT delegate assembly decades ago. Coming full circle, she’s now honored with an award bearing Feldman’s name, a testament to her transformative impact on education in Harlem.

For the past 10 years, Angie Rivera has led more than 850 members in the Rochester Association of Paraprofessionals as their president and fierce advocate for fair pay, professional training and respect on the job.

“We are in the lives of the students all day long,” Rivera said. “But we feel that we are not valued the way that we should be. We are a very important piece in the education of students.”

In 1991, as a single mother of two daughters, Rivera moved her family from Puerto Rico to Rochester. In 1998, she began working in the city school district as a pre-K paraprofessional. Right away she joined her local union and has held many roles since then, from chair of the grievance committee to chair of the public relations committee. In 2003, she was elected to the union’s executive board. She quickly rose through the union leadership ranks and 10 years later, in 2013, Rivera was elected first vice president. Just two years later she was elected president, a position she still holds. Rivera also currently serves on the NYSUT Board of Directors as SRP At-Large Director.

The self-described proud, Puerto Rican unionist has spent her decades-long career in education not only advocating for her students, but for her colleagues. From fighting for a living wage to fighting back against staffing cuts, Rivera has devoted her time and energy for 27 years to improving the lives of her members and SRPs across the state.

Raul Garcia believes that school social workers and psychologists are superheroes, but they need the proper support to keep doing their work well.

Elected as United Federation of Teachers chapter leader in 2017, Garcia represents 3,800 school social workers and psychologists. Garcia has spent his career advocating for mental health support for students, and says that begins with supporting social workers, psychologists and counselors.

“For our members, the burnout is real,” he said. To prevent burnout, these trained professionals have to be used appropriately, and that includes showing appreciation for the critical role they play.

Garcia organizes annual appreciation days, which includes professional development, self-care and other resources. He also works hand-in-hand with members to ensure that they know the ins-and-outs of their contract and how to advocate for themselves and their students.

Garcia began his career as a bilingual school psychologist in 2009, working at multiple high schools in Williamsburg, the same Brooklyn neighborhood where he was born and grew up. Garcia is the child of immigrants; his parents arrived in the U.S. from Ecuador in the early 1980s. Garcia said as a child he didn’t even know he had access to school counselors and psychologists, and so during his career he’s focused on being visible and vocal. Garcia lives in Williamsburg with his partner, Michelle, and their three sons.

After a more than 20 year career working in computer science, Beverly Voos decided to begin a second career as a teacher. She earned her master’s degree in Math, Science and Technology, and started teaching middle school students in the Webster Central School District.

The Webster Teachers Association member retired in 2013 and got to work advocating with NYSUT’s daytime army in Retiree Council 6. Voos became a co-chair of NYSUT’s Retiree Advisory Committee where she fights not only for issues that are important to retirees, but also to in-service educators, including NYSUT’s campaign to Fix Tier 6.

“The retirees that are out there have your back,” Voos said. “We know these times are challenging. We are fighting for the things that will keep you in the field, that will make your career and your profession rewarding and enjoyable and, most importantly, an investment for the kids that you have in front of you.”

Voos also spends her retirement serving as an instructor for NYSUT’s Education & Learning Trust, a role in which she provides professional learning opportunities to other educators. Voos has served on a variety of NYSUT committees, has participated in NYSUT’s annual Committee of 100 lobby day in Albany, and is also a social justice facilitator. When she’s not doing the work of the union, Voos enjoys spending time with family, especially her grandchildren, and traveling.

Tom Murphy began his career in 1964 as a social studies teacher on Staten Island, driven by a passion for social good that would define his professional life. After being encouraged by colleague John Soldini to volunteer for the union, Murphy discovered his calling in labor activism.

In 1990, UFT President Sandra Feldman appointed Murphy as the union’s political legislative director, a position he held for 16 years. During this tenure, he expanded the union’s advocacy beyond traditional education and labor issues to embrace human rights causes, creating a more inclusive vision for the organization’s mission.

Upon retirement in 2006, Murphy transformed the UFT’s Retired Teachers Chapter into what UFT President Michael Mulgrew calls “the daytime army.” Under his 15-year leadership, the chapter grew to more than 80,000 members who advance social justice initiatives when in-service colleagues are in classrooms.

Murphy pioneered a nationwide network of retiree sections, establishing offices in Florida and organizing volunteers for crucial labor campaigns across the country. His philosophy that “if you’re doing it alone, you’re doing it wrong” fostered unprecedented collaboration among retirees.

For his decades of service building institutional memory and advancing labor’s social justice mission, Murphy was recognized with the prestigious Charles Cogen Award, the UFT’s highest honor.

A history professor at Dutchess County Community College and president of Dutchess CC United Educators, Laura Murphy has dedicated her career to advancing equity in higher education. Her commitment to labor activism was shaped by witnessing her father’s struggle as a teacher who lost tenure after participating in a strike.

Murphy’s union involvement progressed from her first awakening at a faculty meeting where she connected her academic knowledge of labor history to her own workplace conditions. She has served as secretary, vice president for full-time faculty, and on every bargaining team since joining the executive council.

Under her leadership, the union has strengthened solidarity across constituencies and achieved significant advances, including integrating part-time staff into the bargaining unit, implementing an equity pay model for adjunct faculty, and establishing a promotion system allowing part-time faculty to advance to professor ranks. A milestone achievement came last year when the Dutchess CCUE reaffiliated with NYSUT after operating as an independent union for many years.

Murphy advocates for increased public funding for both SUNY and CUNY systems while emphasizing community college equity. She believes in fighting for resources that enable reasonable workloads and excellence in education.

Since 2013, Frederick E. Kowal has been the tenacious and tireless leader of United University Professions, the nation’s largest higher education union representing more than 35,000 academic and professional faculty on SUNY’s 29 campuses.

Kowal joined UUP while working as a professor of political science and Native American Studies at SUNY Cobleskill, where he served as chapter president for more than 10 years before his election as statewide president.

The son of working class, unionist parents, Kowal has long understood the protection and collective power that unions provide workers.

“We have an opportunity and an obligation to make life better for others, especially those who have less and those who are coming behind us, the next generation,” he said.

Kowal is a force to be reckoned with in the halls of power where he is continually fighting to advance legislation that will improve his members’ professional and personal lives. From spearheading a pandemic program to provide UUP members on the front lines with hotel rooms near SUNY’s public hospitals, to winning healthcare coverage for adjunct faculty, to pushing back against federal funding cuts to lifesaving research being conducted by UUP members, Kowal is a champion leader who is ready and willing to do the work to support his members.

Dr. Redetha Abrahams-Nichols, president of UUP’s Downstate Chapter, has emerged as a formidable advocate for healthcare access in Central Brooklyn. With 27 years in healthcare — 22 at Downstate — Dr. Abrahams-Nichols holds a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree and a master’s of public administration.

Rising from staff nurse to leadership roles, she transformed Downstate’s emergency department from a unit with two to three nurses to a robust team serving 70,000 patients annually. When SUNY announced plans to close Downstate in January 2024, Dr. Abrahams-Nichols mobilized immediate resistance, confronting the SUNY chancellor directly and insisting, “We want a hospital. We’ll have nothing less.”

Her leadership philosophy — ”We’re all in a circle. We’re holding hands. I’m just in a different place in the circle”— guided her innovative weekly “Walk-A-Mile” protests and her instrumental role in forming the Brooklyn For Downstate coalition. Her efforts helped secure continued funding for Downstate, protecting vital services including Brooklyn’s only kidney transplant program for a community where nearly 90 percent of patients rely on Medicaid or are uninsured. Her advocacy is deeply personal — 60 percent of Downstate employees live in the communities they serve.

Beyond her advocacy, Dr. Abrahams-Nichols demonstrates commitment to nursing education as an instructor, and champions healthcare professionals through her service on multiple healthcare committees.

Moncef Righi, an operating room nurse and Federation of Nurses/UFT chapter leader at NYU Langone Hospital–Brooklyn, discovered his calling to nursing through a deeply personal experience. When his mother faced a life-threatening medical emergency in his home country, Righi’s quick thinking saved her life — and changed his career trajectory from physics to healthcare.

After working on a surgical floor and spending six years in the emergency department, Righi moved to the operating room, where he noticed many nurses weren’t aware of their contractual rights. This observation propelled him into union activism, culminating in his election as chapter leader.

Under his leadership, the 1,200-member unit successfully negotiated a groundbreaking two-year contract, securing higher wages and requiring the hiring of 100 additional nurses to improve staffing ratios. Notably, Righi helped establish a compensation system where nurses automatically receive additional pay when working short-staffed — a move that rewards nurses for extra work while providing incentives for the hospital to maintain safe staffing levels.

His data-driven approach to negotiations surprised even hospital management, who were unprepared for his detailed knowledge of hospital operations and patient census numbers. Through persistent advocacy and meticulous documentation of 8,000 staffing grievances, Righi has transformed working conditions while improving patient care across the hospital’s diverse units.