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Jim Tabert knew Emil Pietromonaco was headed for bigger and better things at the UFT long before he recommended him to become his replacement as the union’s Staten Island borough representative in 2006.

“He had the most important quality,” Tabert, now retired, said after Pietromonaco received the Charles Cogen Award — the highest honor the UFT bestows on one of its own — at Teacher Union Day on Nov. 6. “He cared.”

And Pietromonaco found out from an early age that caring and union go together.

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His dad, an Italian immigrant, always described himself as “a union plumber,” Pietromonaco said. And when a young Emil asked his dad what the union did, Emelio Pietromonaco explained, “They care about the well-being of our family.”

Pietromonaco took that lesson into adulthood. He got a job teaching at his alma mater, IS 51 on Staten Island, in 1973 and witnessed one of his former teachers suffer a breakdown caused by what Pietromonaco perceived as abuse from the administration. When he asked his chapter leader if there was something that could be done for the teacher, she told him the teacher should have retired. She said if he didn’t like it, maybe he should run for chapter leader. He did, and was elected.

Pietromonaco performed that job for 14 years before becoming the UFT District 31 representative. When Tabert retired as borough rep, there was no question who he wanted to replace him.

“Emil never forgot he was working for the members, and that it was his responsibility to care about them,” Tabert said.

Pietromonaco never took himself too seriously, Tabert added, but also exuded confidence. “He was easy to like, but you also knew he was going to deal with your situation as best as he could,” Tabert said.

Among the tasks he took on during that time was co-chairing the union’s governance committee leading up to the state’s reauthorization of mayoral control of New York City public schools in 2009.

When he agreed to run for UFT secretary in 2013, he was well-prepared to serve the members in that role. But he also brought his humanity and levity to a central staff disheartened by the Bloomberg years, UFT President Michael Mulgrew said.

At the union’s Friday leadership meetings, Pietromonaco organized a Festivus celebration and sports team days, Donut Day and Stars Wars Day, Mulgrew recalled. “He actually made those meetings exciting,” he said.

All in a day’s work for Pietromonaco.

“Celebrating the little things,” he said, “makes you who you are.”

And for Pietromonaco, if anyone asks, that will always be “a union teacher.”