National Nurses United

Filipino_JulAug 11/29/11 10:09 PM Page 18 At St. Luke's Hospital in San Francisco, where Villanueva was discouraged from applying for a supervisor position, data collected by the California Nurses Association points to what Villanueva and others allege as systemwide discrimination against Filipino nurses. Just before St. Luke's was incorporated into California Pacific Medical Center by the large corporate hospital chain Sutter Health in January 2007, Filipino nurses at St. Luke's made up 66 percent of the nursing population. That year, one in three nurses hired were Filipino. From 2008 until the end of 2010, only 15 percent, or six of 41, of new hires were Filipino. Claimants and the union charge that the sudden drop in Filipino nurse hires is evidence that the hospital was using discriminatory practices. The California Nurses Association filed a class action grievance on behalf of Filipino nurses against California Medical Pacific Center, which owns and operates St. Luke's Hospital. Villanueva was not alone in overhearing the statement of not hiring foreign nurses. A manager who worked there for two years said that one member of upper management suggested to him not to hire foreign graduate nurses because patients have a hard time understanding them. The hospital had had a longstanding practice of hiring Filipino nurses, even going directly to the Philippines to recruit nurses. But recently, it's clear that they have been trying to "cut the cord" with Filipino nurses, said Triunfo-Cortez who, as one of the country's top Filipino nurse leaders, has watched the case closely. She believes it is because Filipino nurses have been outspoken in their criticism in recent years of the hospital chain's plans to close the hospital. (CNA currently has ongoing litigation against CMPC). Community organizations like the Filipino Community Center are advocating for St. Luke's Filipino nurses. CPMC denies all allegations and the grievance has yet to be resolved. ethnic studies at the University of California at Berkeley; ABS-CBNnews.com 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 O C TO B E R 2 0 1 1 1907 3 1950 17 1970 140 1990 170 Today 460 Data based on research by Catherine Ceniza Choy, author of Empire of Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History and professor in the department of 18 N AT I O N A L N U R S E KAREN KASMAUSKI/CORBIS Nursing Programs O in the Philippines nce on the job, however, Filipino nurses often face various kinds of discrimination by their employers and coworkers. Language continues to be a hot-button issue for Filipino nurses. Though Filipino nurses speak English, the Delano case is just one of many cases where employers have established rules preventing employees from speaking their native language. At Delano Regional Medical Center, Filipino workers were singled out for their English-only policy. Beginning in 2006, Filipino employees, the majority of them nurses, were called to meetings and told they were not to speak Tagalog or any other Filipino dialect at work, not even during breaks or in break rooms. They were threatened with surveillance and job loss if they were found to speak anything other than English at work. Non-Filipino workers were encouraged to report and monitor Filipino-American workers. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Los Angeles-based Asian Pacific American Legal Center have filed lawsuits on behalf of 52 Filipino workers, some who have worked at the hospital for decades, for violation of U.S. and California civil rights laws. The facts unearthed by the EEOC's investigation are damaging: It found that the hospital's stringent English-only policy created "severe and pervasive workplace harassment" for its Filipino workers. "Non-Filipino employees, including supervisors, doctors, and nurses, regularly spoke in languages other than English (including Spanish and Arabic) without being reprimanded or censured," according to the suit.

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