AFSCME Local 328 Solidarity with BERG
To the BERG: Our union sees, recognizes and values the incredible leadership and perseverance of our Black colleagues at OHSU. We stand in solidarity with the BERG. AFSCME Local 328 has been reflecting as a union, and we recognize our ability to do much better.
AFSCME Local 328 is writing to publicly voice our support for the OHSU Black Employee Resource Group. We stand in support of the leadership demonstrated by OHSU’s Black employees and bear witness to this August 31 letter sent by the BERG to OHSU leadership and the board of directors calling out concerns around OHSU’s racist practices, particularly those impacting Black employees.
Elements of white-supremacy culture are demonstrated throughout OHSU’s response to the BERG’s letter. One example of this is OHSU’s choice to respond to the Lund Report article highlighting the BERG’s concerns before OHSU addressed the BERG themselves. While OHSU has committed to becoming an anti-racist institution and has implemented a weekly Anti-Racist Action OHSU Now post, there is much work to be done. Local 328 recognizes that one of the supports our union can offer is to hold OHSU accountable in its movement towards becoming anti-racist.
This is a call to action for all OHSU employees, not just OHSU leadership and board members or just Local 328 members: to continue the journey towards making OHSU an anti-racist institution, we must all self-reflect, examine the racist behaviors and systems we participate in and evaluate how we can be disruptors of the systems that support white-supremacy culture. While many of us are in different places in our journey, to explore this more, we offer the following questions to encourage self-reflection:
What is white-supremacy culture?
How does it show up in my life?
In addition, we recommend watching Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk, The Danger of a Single Story, in which she discusses how we risk a critical misunderstanding if we hear only a single story about another person or country.
Local 328 is dedicated to advancing anti-racist work within OHSU and our union. We recognize our need to improve as well. We have established a diversity/equity/inclusion committee to ensure our union can apply a lens of equity to our work, and the committee has completed the following actions:
Conducted a racial-equity assessment with our executive committee to see where our union can improve its practices.
Translated important union documents into multiple languages to ensure more members have access to information
Trained stewards to identify, report and handle cases involving discrimination and harassment.
Trained union members to run equity trainings at OHSU.
Worked with Oregon AFSCME Council 75 to create caucuses for Black and POC members to have a space to discuss issues that are important to them. (in progress)
In addition, Local 328 commits to hosting a fourteen-month series to highlight, examine and analyze how our union can support each of the BERG’s 14 Points of Action. Our intention is to publish a monthly piece on our blog and social-media pages outlining one of the 14 Points, with an in-depth review of how the OHSU community, including Local 328, can move this work forward.
We are pressing OHSU leadership, Local 328 members and the OHSU community as whole to keep anti-racist work at the center as we move forward. In order for OHSU to become an anti-racist institution, we must all be accountable and demonstrate transparency.