Jettie Deden-Castillo, NP, Elected UNAC/UHCP Treasurer

June 2013

“To be UNAC/UHCP Treasurer is a great honor and it will be a privilege to serve in this role.” NP Jettie Deden-Castillo’s vision for our union involves building unity between affiliates, between affiliates and the State office, between professions within the union. “The bottom line is that we’re all intertwined,” she says. “We are all one UNAC/UHCP.” One of the main reasons Jettie wanted to be Treasurer is the close relationship she’ll have with every affiliate through helping them manage their funds to best serve their members. “Their success is my success and therefore our entire union’s success.”

A nurse at Kaiser since 1977, Jettie was given a scholarship in 1979 to become an OB/GYN Nurse Practitioner—a union-negotiated benefit. “I will be indebted to UNAC/UHCP for life for that gift,” she says. In 2011 she became Contract Specialist at Downey and reports “It opened my eyes to the great work our union accomplishes.” Jettie holds the Kaiser Downey affiliate’s seat on UNAC/UHCP’s Executive Council, and has been a delegate or alternate to conventions for AFSCME, NUHHCE and UNAC/UHCP, as well as attending the recent UNA Congress in Washington, D.C. Last year she helped to organize the Specialty Care Nurses, Certified Nurse Midwives and Wound Ostomy Nurses.

“This is the future of our middle class,” says Jettie. “We have to continue to organize. It’s going to be our security. I have four kids, and I’m looking toward their future as well. I’m thinking about all the young people going through college and having to work so hard. I want them to have the same benefits that I have.” Jettie returns to her theme of unity. “As we continue to organize, our membership will become more and more diversified. We just finished organizing Physical, Occupational and Recreational Therapists, Nurse Educators, Midwives and Case Managers just to name a few. We have been representing Optometrists and Physician Assistants for many years. We are not just RNs like we were when this union first started in the 70s. We are all UNAC/UHCP, and we all need to work together. In the end it will only make us stronger.”