National Nurses United

couldn't have come at a better time, with our Black, Brown, and Indigenous patients and nurses suffering an outsized impact from Covid-19, and hospitals using the pandemic as an excuse to shutter less-profitable units and facilities, largely in communities of color. We're beyond inspired to see the ways in which front- line NNU nurses are already using the infrastructure provided by the division to rocket their fight to the next level. Take what's happening in Kaiser Permanente, for example. While trumpeting its history of "equity, inclu- sion, and diversity," Kaiser's website highlights that 67 percent of its workers are members of racial, ethnic, and cultural minorities, and 75 percent are women. But ask the Kaiser registered nurses—who make up those diverse statistics—about their direct experience, and you'll hear a different story. "As someone who is biracial, I've experienced some subtle racial slurs as a frontline staff nurse," said Califor- nia Nurses Association (CNA) President Cathy Kennedy, an RN at Kaiser Permanente in Roseville, Calif. Ken- nedy recalls an incident when a Black, male nurse was disciplined by Kaiser in a way that felt so unnecessary and harsh compared to the treatment of white col- leagues that he ended up leaving Kaiser. She also shared an example of a white manager recently making a racist comment about Filipino nurses. "It started to weigh heavily on me," said Kennedy, who realized that despite the lip service Kaiser paid to diversity, Kaiser nurses were still experiencing racial injustice at work. For years, Kennedy had been the coordinator for Kaiser's North- ern California RN quality liaison (QL) program. The QL registered nurses meet regularly to discuss issues impacting the quality of patient care in their facilities, and Kennedy started to think that per- haps racism could be one of those issues the group discussed. When Kennedy was elected president of CNA in 2020, Joanne Imwalle, an RN at South Sacramento Kaiser, took over as QL coordinator, and during that transition, Kennedy and Imwalle decided the QL nurses would work on their first-ever region-wide collective goal: address- ing racial injustice within Kaiser. "We knew there were actual material ways we could empower nurses to take action," said Imwalle. The first step, she said, was looking to the infrastructure the union could provide, and the QL nurses attended a workshop hosted by NNU's new Division of Social Justice and Equity. The division also supported the Kaiser QL nurses through what happened next: a lot of difficult conversations. "One of the things I knew because I am a person of color is there isn't an easy fix, there isn't a toolbox. So I knew these conversations would be hard," said Kennedy. But the Kaiser nurses pressed forward. Over the following months, they worked with the division to develop facility flyers, educational Powerpoint presentations, and an assessment tool to collect data about hospital-based racism from the Kaiser nurses. Around 400 Kaiser nurses from throughout Northern California were initially surveyed. Preliminary results showed that every nurse who took the survey had experienced racism at work: either directed at themselves, patients, or other nurses. "When we break up the data by race, it is clear that nurses of color experience racism more often and in different ways than white nurses. But, the survey also showed that racism impacts everyone in the hos- pital regardless of their race," said Imwalle. Nearly 70 percent of the time, according to the survey, nurses were not reporting incidents of racism, whether from having a sense they are on their own, feeling the complaint won't go anywhere, or being afraid of retaliation. "The problem with all these approaches is that they don't hold management accountable for their responsibility to prevent racism in the workplace," said Imwalle. Despite Kaiser's "illusion of inclu- sion," Imwalle emphasized that the survey showed when it comes down to it, nurses—and their patients—are still experiencing racial injustice in Kaiser facilities. In January of 2022, the QL nurses plan to present their findings to management. They hope that the assess- ment tool they developed can be replicated and refined by nurses, with the support of the Division for Social Justice and Equity, at other facilities across the country who may want to take on these issues in their own workplace. "I think it's time that we put a lot of effort and focus on this. I'm glad it's being addressed, and nurses are being given a platform and tools to address it in their own way," said CNA/NNU President Zenei Triunfo-Cortez, a Filipinx Kaiser registered nurse of more than 40 years. The Kaiser nurses are not alone in using the new division's infras- tructure to advance their work on the social determinants of health. And Division of Social Justice and Equity Assistant Director Heidi Hoechst emphasizes that the work is about empowering nurses to lead the way in the wider world, in addition to their workplaces. "The way nurses address and fight for justice is intimately tied to 20 N A T I O N A L N U R S E 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 T O B E R | N O V E M B E R | D E C E M B E R 2 0 2 1 "There's not much diversity in management. So you have this imbalance of power that's happening in these committees. The nurses who should be on these committees are the floor nurses, who are a more diverse population."

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