Advocating for Nurses’ Rights
Photo: National Nurses United
A spotlight on NNU’s Executive Director Bonnie Castillo, RN
April is National Minority Health Month—a time to highlight the women of color who are passionate advocates for health equity in medicine. Whether for patients or providers, the medical field needs women to raise their voices when disparities in treatment—or safety—are observed.
Bonnie Castillo, RN, has been doing just that for over twenty years. As the Executive Director of National Nurses United (NNU), California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), she bridges the worlds of advocacy and medicine to lead the largest union and professional association of registered nurses in the U.S. She is the organization’s first Latino executive director in its 115-year history.
Known for her tenacity and stage presence, Ms. Castillo has served as a leading voice for nurse and patient safety, especially during one of the country’s darkest periods in healthcare: the Covid-19 pandemic.
A registered nurse herself, Ms. Castillo spent her early career in the critical care unit of Sacramento’s now-defunct American River Hospital, where she became a CNA/NNOC member and helped unionize her facility. After fourteen years, she left her hospital role to work for the union full time.
“It was pretty clear to me within a couple of years of being a young registered nurse that the needs of myself and my co-workers weren’t being adequately addressed through dealing with management directly,” Ms. Castillo said during an interview with California Healthline. “When we organized and won a strong contract, we realized this would actually affect our ability to give better care. This process of bringing nurses together, predominantly women, to work collectively was […] so invigorating and exciting that I felt the need to continue.”
Over the course of two decades, Ms. Castillo moved up the ranks at NNU, transitioning from staff to lead organizer, and eventually director of the Registered Nurse Response Network (RNRN), the union’s disaster relief program. She deployed volunteer nurses to major disaster sites, including the Haiti earthquake, super typhoon Haiyan, and Hurricanes Katrina (Louisiana), Harvey (Texas), and Maria (Puerto Rico), to provide emergency medical assistance.
Bonnie also served as the CNA/NNOC director of government relations and NNU director of health and safety before assuming the role of executive director in 2018. Under her leadership, the NNU has continued to advocate for healthcare reforms that protect nurses and ensure quality patient care. The NNU’s key initiatives include winning major national legislation to promote comprehensive, mandatory RN-to-patient staffing ratios, as well as guaranteed robust protections against workplace violence at the federal level.
When news broke of the confirmed U.S. cases of Covid-19 in January 2020, Ms. Castillo quickly raised the alarm on insufficient personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers. Under Ms. Castillo’s directive, NNU began a letter writing campaign to major health organizations and government bodies, urging them to produce more protective equipment. As the pandemic intensified and nurses across the country were left to fend for themselves—even borrowing N-95 masks from friends to bring to work— Ms. Castillo’s voice grew louder on the national stage. She called the lack of PPE for healthcare professionals “a matter of life and death” and publicly demanded the enactment of the Defense Production Act to produce PPE on a mass scale. NNU also organized two protests at the White House, as well as 1,500 actions across the country, hoping to raise awareness and pressure the federal government to act.
In June 2020, Ms. Castillo was invited to testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform during its hearing “No Worker Left Behind: Supporting Essential Workers.” She detailed the plight of nurses on the front line who were forced to operate in highly contagious environments without safeguards in place to protect their lives or their jobs. Over 130 nurses had already died by contracting the disease on the job, Ms. Castillo explained, and every day nurses were at risk of spreading the virus to their own families and patients. She closed her address with an admonishment and final call to action for Congress: “Our country has failed to protect nurses during this pandemic. Without protections, more nurses will continue to die. On behalf of nurses across the country, I urge the members of this committee to ensure that we get the protections we need immediately.”
For her leadership and tireless advocacy during the initial waves of the pandemic, Ms. Castillo was named one of TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in September 2020. In response to this honor, she said, “Nurses understand the social determinants of health—and how so much injustice in our society is amplified by Covid-19. As we advocate for our patients at the crossroads of so many critical issues, this award lets nurses everywhere know that our expertise is recognized, and it validates our fight to speak truth to power.” In 2022, Ms. Castillo was also named one of Modern Healthcare’s 50 Most Influential Clinical Executives.
Today, NNU has nearly 225,000 members nationwide – an increase of over 100,000 members since the start of Ms. Castillo’s tenure as executive director in 2018. Her boundary-breaking career has made a major impact on health equity in the U.S. over the last twenty years, and we are honored to share Ms. Castillo’s story in celebration of National Minority Health Month.
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