National Nurses United

Profile:FINAL 2/28/09 1:16 AM Page 18 Grace Under Fire In her 16 years at CNA/NNOC, Donna Gerber has made championing nurses and patients under the most trying of conditions look easy. By Lucia Hwang I n her combined 16 years working at CNA/NNOC, Donna Gerber's career has really come full circle. In 1986, Gerber was working as a CNA labor representative for registered nurses at Kaiser Permanente, helping them stage an eight-week strike. She was in the Kaiser Oakland hospital cafeteria one day when the administration asked her to leave. She wasn't violating any rules by sitting in a public space, so she refused. The police came, arrested her, and threw her in the Oakland city jail. Gerber called CNA/NNOC for help, but at that time, the organization was controlled by nurse managers who loathed representing bedside nurses. "I called my boss but he just said he wished I hadn't done that," said Gerber. "I got no support from CNA." She had to turn to her family and labor attorneys she knew to bail herself out. Now fast forward to December 2004, when California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was aggressively trying to dismantle the state's firstin-the-nation RN-to-patient ratios as one of his first acts in office. Gerber, as CNA/NNOC's government relations director, told the state secretary of health services that registered nurses would not stand for these changes, but the secretary was dismissive. "Listen, you don't know my people," warned Gerber in the always understated and polite, but ominous, tone she has perfected over her years dealing with politicians. In this case, CNA/NNOC was more than ready to back up Gerber's every word. The governor ultimately suffered a crushing blow to his reputation after nurses waged war against him for more than a year, holding demonstrations wherever he traveled and defeating all of his anti-worker initiatives during a special election in 2005. The dramatic difference between Gerber's two experiences perfectly illustrates how far the organization has come in truly representing registered nurses' and patients' interests. And as Gerber prepares to retire in January, she says she is proud and privileged to have represented an organization that strives to do the right thing, instead of what is politically expedient. Of course, Gerber herself played a critical role in transforming CNA/NNOC from the union that would not bail her out into what it is today. "I have been fortunate to work for CNA/NNOC," said Gerber. "I'm able to express our position forcefully and truthfully to people on behalf of nurses, and I don't have to worry about the rug being pulled from under me. It's the opposite of the experience I had working for the old CNA." Gerber has worked for CNA/NNOC a total of 16 years: from 1981 to 1987 as a labor rep, from 1993 to 1996 as director of education, and from 2004 to 2008 as director of government relations. She has filled many roles within the organization, from representing RNs' grievances, to helping teach courses on the hospital industry's deskilling of nursing, to campaigning and lobbying for nurse- and patient-friendly legislation, to 18 REGISTERED NURSE going toe-to-toe with the state's most powerful elected officials over bad healthcare reform legislation. Always impeccably dressed and poised, able to slice to the core of an issue with just one sentence or sometimes a coolly-delivered four-letter word, Gerber has been the face of CNA/NNOC in Sacramento during a turbulent time in healthcare. In between her positions at CNA/NNOC, she has also worked for other unions and even held office herself, serving two terms on the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors. The common thread connecting her career, says Gerber, is that she is always organizing people so that, collectively, they can wield the power it takes to create a more just society. For her, it's mostly about finding a place of mutual ground from where she can begin a dialogue. "Information is empowering," said Gerber. Gerber has always been an advocate. She grew up primarily in Los Angeles and studied social work at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Her first job out of school was as a social worker for Los Angeles County, helping disabled adults with mental or physical illnesses navigate the system for receiving assistance, Medi-Cal, and other services. She joined the county union for social workers because its message of strength in numbers "made basic sense to me," but she was not actively Gerber (left) with involved. The most memorable event CNA/NNOC Executive from that time was in 1968 when the Director Rose Ann union helped female workers fight the DeMoro as RNs flooded county dress code, which dictated that the California Capitol women must wear skirts even while rush- building in protest ing around making home visits, while the of legislation that men were allowed to dress quite casually did nothing to control in just jeans and sport coats. "We thought costs and gave more we should be able to wear pant suits, but business to insurers. they nixed it," said Gerber. "And I thought that was stupid." She filed a grievance which the union pooled with others to successfully change the policy. In the 1970s, she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and worked as a social worker with children and families for Contra Costa County, where she had her first real taste of union activism. County clerical workers had gone out on strike, but Gerber's union had recently reached a tentative contract agreement. "The union told us that legally we couldn't strike, but we had the right to honor the picket line," she said. Gerber and enough of her coworkers decided to stay out in solidarity with the clerks so that the dispute grew into a general strike that shut down county government for 29 days. She started attending union meetings and "figuring out which end was up." The general strike ended up being so successful that not only did the clerical workers get what they wanted, Gerber and her fellow social workers won an additional provision guaranteeing binding W W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2009

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