National Nurses United

Filipino_JulAug 11/29/11 10:09 PM Page 17 housewife in the Philippines. "One of the reasons why I really wanted to come here was for a greener pasture, for better opportunities, to help my folks back home." aria asuncion servillon, 60, also felt the pull of the United States. Servillon was 22 years old and a recent graduate of the University of Santo Tomas College of Nursing when the director of a Kingsport, Tenn.-based teaching hospital landed in Manila and recruited nurses from her school. "You know, when you're young, you're brave," Servillon, who goes by Siony, says. She, along with about 30 other recruits, were interviewed on the spot and signed up for a short-term contract with the hospital. They headed on a plane from Manila to Tennessee. The opportunity allowed Servillon and her classmates to see the world, though she calls life upon arrival as a "cultural shock." In Tennessee in 1973, nearly everyone was black or white, she says. The young nurses also didn't know how to cook or do many chores, as many were accustomed to having household help in the Philippines. And at first, the foreign-trained nurses were not accepted by the local hospital workers. The nurses' aids and nurses in training may have felt threatened by these younger nurses from abroad telling them what to do, Servillon said. But the Filipino nurses were able to break the cultural barrier and befriend their Southern coworkers. "We invited them to our parties," Servillon said. "We brought them Filipino food." After working in the Tennessee hospital for two years, Servillon moved west to Daly City, Calif., just outside of San Francisco and is now an evening charge nurse in the ICU at St. Luke's Hospital where she has worked for more than 36 years, in the Mission district of San Francisco made up of mostly poor and working-class Latino and Asian immigrants and African Americans. It's the same hospital where Villanueva, the RN discouraged from seeking a promotion, works. Servillon counts her blessings that her experience being recruited was positive overall. "I could have been recruited by other places that did not treat their workers right." Other nurses who came to the United States were not so lucky. Some had to return to the Philippines when they didn't pass required nursing exams. And tales abound of unscrupulous M Filipino Nurses by the Numbers One in four immigrant women from the Philippines are nurses About 69 percent of all foreign-trained nurses seeking licenses in the United States are from the Philippines Sources: Migration Policy Institute and American Community Survey, 2008; National Council of State Board of Nursing, 2010 O C TO B E R 2 0 1 1 recruiters and employers who deceive nurses about the type of work they would do and the working conditions they would have. Nurses were sometimes given the most undesirable shifts, like the night shift, were paid stipends instead of full wages, or were not paid overtime wages. Others were assigned work in nursing homes as aids instead of as nurses in clinics or hospitals. "They are vulnerable to exploitation, especially new migrant nurses," says Choy. "Their work is tied to their migration status. They become vulnerable to overwork, to undercutting of wages, because they want to do well and keep their jobs." This type of exploitation is a "longstanding pattern" that continues today, according to Choy. In 2006, a high-profile case of nurses recruited from the Philippines to work in Long Island came to light, with extensive coverage in the New York Times and Newsday. When the nurses arrived, they found that they were not given what was promised, including fair wages and benefits and decent working conditions in a nursing home. A lawyer advised the nurses that their employer had breached their contracts and 24 workers resigned en masse. In response, SentosaCare, their employer, filed a civil suit against 10 of the workers for breach of contract and patient abandonment. The nurses then countersued and filed a complaint against the recruiting arm of the company in the Philippines, with the Philippines government temporarily halting the company's recruiting privileges. In May 2010, the nurses were successful in court and a judge decided they did not have to pay the recruitment agency up to $25,000 in damages. But the case stands out as an example of how unethical recruitment of Filipino nurses is an ongoing problem. "It's a big victory for migrant nurses, especially Filipino nurses," said Zenei Triunfo-Cortez, RN and co-president of the California Nurses Association. "Hopefully, we are encouraging nurses, if they believe they are being discriminated against or favored over others, to speak up." In addition to unethical recruiters, constantly changing immigration laws and government policies also put Filipino nurses recruited from abroad in precarious situations. Noreen David Brion, 49, a critical care RN at Mountain View Hospital in Las Vegas, Nev., and a negotiating team member of her union, spent several months running away from immigration when she first arrived in the United States. She immigrated on a working visa in 1988 at age 28 after working in the Philippines for a few years where she helped organize a nurse union. Soon after her arrival, the United States passed the Nursing Relief Act of 1989, which expanded the number of foreign nurses in U.S. hospitals. However, the Chicago hospital where she worked was not able to prove that they tried to hire domestic nurses first before hiring foreign nurses under the attestation law, so Brion and a handful of other nurses lost their visas. In fact, she didn't realize she was working without a visa until later so, for a short time, she was undocumented. "We panicked and all ran to different states," Brion says about herself and the other Filipino nurses working with her who were also working without a visa. "We basically went into hiding. It was difficult for me to get legal in the U.S." She found a hospital in Los Angeles that could sponsor her work visa, but first had to go back to the Philippines for a month before re-entering the United States. Brion eventually got a green card and is now a citizen. And while U.S. employers have historically pursued Filipino candidates to fill nursing positions, it seems that some facilities are biased against hiring Filipinos. W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G N AT I O N A L N U R S E 17

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