>> good afternoon, madam president and members of the board. greg wagner, acting director of the department of had been health. so we have in our priorities for the department and our strategic goals, one of our goals being public health is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace where all employees are treated with fairness, dignity, and respect. and i will tell you about some of the things that we are working on, but i also want to be clear that we have a long way to go. there's a lot of work to do over time to get us to where we need to be. we have a list of items up on that screen here. we've added two new fge recruiters, and part of the role of those recruiters, as was discussed in the hearing, was to discuss outreach when we have positions, to increase the pipeline of black and african-american applicants into

the department. so those recruiters are reaching out to particular areas. examples: the black nurses association. the association of black social workers, and really making a concerted effort to try to encourage applicants that will improve the diversity of the department. we have, as also has been discussed in this hearing, a hire progress where -- process where hiring managers need to go through training and review roles on nepotism and hiring. we're continuing that and expanding that under the mayor's executive directive. that's a tool that will help keep issues of bias front and center in people's mind when they're going into the hiring process. we don't move forward with the panel until each panelist has certified that they've gone

through that training. we have been working for some time on our racial humility training. this is a program we've had 500 dph staff go through. this encourages and gives people tools to talk about issues of race in the workplace. this is aimed less at the mechanics of the process and maintaining a culture in the department where we're identifying issues of race and talking about them and keeping them up front and center in the decisions that are being made at the department. we're continuing that program going forward and expanding the number of people trained. we have our trauma informed systems program. the trauma is an important way for us to view some of the issues that our patients and staff are dealing with in the department of public health

workplace. we've trained 8,600 staff at the department of public health. other city departments in our community-based organizations. that program is expanding. we have the black american health initiative. we've been working on this. this is to help reduce disparities in health outcomes. as part of the initiative, we have a series of workplace components that are meetings, lunches, speaker series to highlight issues of race in the department. >> so what is the department -- how do you handle -- i've heard a lot of complaints specifically from the department of health. you know, you've presented a little bit of the softer side of the social elements. yes, you've had a fantastic black history celebration. i've been there.

beyond that, where are we with dismissals? you know, there's recent cases that come from your department that has triggered this entire conversation. maybe you can speak with a little specificity on exactly what is happening in the department of public health. >> yes. thank you for that question, president cohen. so we have a number of processes that are happening as part of the mayor's executive directive, we'll be gathering the data and using the data to change our practices -- >> so prior to the directive, did you collect data? >> not on dismissals and probationary period ending. >> thank you. >> so we've collected over forms of data and used that data to improve our practices. we have career coaching and retention program that we're working on to help assist individuals prior to getting to that point, and we'll continue that effort, and we also have new hr team that's in place, a number including our labor

relations directors, managers, operations, merit, our eeo programs, all of those individuals, as part of their charge with the department, have the goal of prioritizing the -- changing the culture of the department of human resources to focus on that mission of focusing on racial equity and improving the diversity of the staff and the department of public health to match the communities. >> another strategy that has been documented is that if you want to start to change the culture of a department, you start to change a the decision makers look like. ha is the strategy of the -- what is the strategy of the department of health in order to bring diversity into the higher echelons of dph, the higher staffing level? >> that's absolutely a good point. all the initiatives that we're working on are not just at the entry level, and that discussion came up earlier in the

conversation. the work is throughout every level of department from line staff to executive leadership. so in all of our hiring decisions, we have the process of anybody who sits on those panels has to go through that training. they have to review the implicit bias videos. we have the practice of hr approves the hiring panels to ensure we have the diversity on the hiring panels, and that is through every level in the organization. >> are the hiring panels consistent. are they uniform? >> well, there will be different people on different panels, but they will be consistently reviewed to ensure there's diversity on the panels. so for each different position, you will have a different mixture of people on those panels, but we're actively working to increase the dive diversity on our panels. >> we met about this.

with the diversity, you have someone within the department, within the line staff, you have someone who knows the role of the immediate supervisor. what does the components of your salve -- staff -- interview panel. >> you would have to have the subject matter experts from the area. in other cases, we'll add staff from our hr department or other divisions. for example, we may pull in somebody from a sister department that has a similar function and bring somebody in from that department to be kind of an outside -- provide an outside view on our hiring process. so it varies over time depending on what we're doing, particularly the areas where we're hiring a large number of employees. for example, right now we have an active effort to hire registered nursing staff.

that's one of our areas that is targeted for improvement. >> i hear anecdotally that there's always preferential treatment shown in the hiring of the nursing staff within dph. and when i look at the numbers, it seems pretty lopsided. seems like there's one ethnicity that is pretty dominant. how do you account for that? >> well, i would say that that is not acceptable for that to be the case. >> yeah, but it's the case. >> okay. we know it's not exemptible. so how do we move forward? >> so what we do need to do, a couple of things, there's deidentification of the c candidates that are coming in through the hiring process. there's the composition of the hiring panels. so we have a panel that's actually participating in the

hiring. i think there's -- really importantly creating this larger departmental culture where we're talking about issues of diversity and race and putting that at the forefront of our decision making, making sure that's present even prior to the point where we get into the process of sitting on those panels, going through resumes, and just making it clear to everybody in the department that this is one of our strategic priorities, and we expect that it will be at the forefront. >> how long has this been a strategic priority? >> it's been a strategic priority for a couple of years. we started the black initiative -- >> but that's not for employees. that's for people again fitting for the services of dph. i'm only looking -- an introspective moment, if you will -- at dph and hiring. if you're failing, there seems to be a disconnect. what i want to hear from you is what are you going to be doing

that's different. >> thank you for that question. >> so we're getting a different result. >> thank you for that question. so the latest strategic planning effort where we have historically done strategic plans at the division levels, hospitals, primary care, the divisions within the system, our latest strategic planning process, we did a departmentwide strategic planning process and identified equity as one of our departmentwide priorities, and that will be pushed down through each of the individual level plans. that's a new component to it where we're taking it and elevating it to the department level and pushing it down through the divisions. so i certainly acknowledge that at least a lot of work for us to do. we're not where we need to be, but it is a priority for the department and it will continue

to be a priority for us. >> we need to work on this department. we need to work on the department of public health. >> when we get our diversity recruiter and develop a tool kit, we'll share it with all departments, and we'll absolutely reach out to public health. i do think we should think about growing our own workforce and promoting people from within and getting training so they can stay with the city. it will be a more stable workforce for us. they won't leave for other job, and we can benefit from people who have long services at the city. there used to be programs back, i think when there was more of a nursing shortage where people -- we had programs to support people going from, let's say, nurse's assistant to lvn or from lvn to rn. i would like to talk to the department to see if there are resources to support that. >> mr. greg wagner, i want to acknowledge that i know this is

not a reflection of you and your priorities. you've been on the finance side of the house and have recently stepped in due to the departure of former director barbara garcia. so these are questions that are poignant and not to be taken as personal. i think the purpose of this entire hearing is to ask very difficult and straightforward questions. and the fact that this has been the department's priority, but they've been missing the mark, we can't sweep it under the rug. we have to address it. i just want to acknowledge that i know it's not you, but it is a larger systemic problem, and we're going to be working with the department of human resources to help correct all of this. >> thank you, madam president. i don't take nit -- take it in a personal perspective. i understand. >> we're going to talk to the director of human service agency. >> good afternoon, supervisors.

trent brewer, director of the human services agency. we have just a couple of slides that will be up. since i didn't have an opportunity to present at the committee, i thought i would just start with the slide that shows the breakdown of the human services agency staff by ethnicity. i should say sort of at a minimum, one of the things that's important to me and that we track is that our employees, the ethnic breakdown of our employees mirrors and reflects that of the clients we serve. and what you see in this chart is sort of realigned. the green is a citywide percentage, and then the blue would be a percentage of hsa employees who fall within each category. and then the orange represents our percent of clients or customers. we serve about 250,000 san franciscoens a year. it's a pretty representative sample of those who are in the city. so you can see on api -- and

across the spectrum -- we're pretty close to on the mark. i want to clarify, in case i mumbled at the beginning, this is the standard representation of our agency. we're meeting it on this level. pointing particularly to the african-american population of employees, about 15% of hsa employe employees. moving to the right, hispanic, latino, 20% of our employees and almost 20% of clientele. and 19% of hsa employees are white and 20% of our clientele. so that just gives you a little

framework to give you a picture of our 2,400 or so employees, what the breakdown is. so the next slide is really just a representation on what we have embarked upon. really, this is over the past two to three years. what we're calling it internally and externally is the dvi. it embraces diversity, equity, and inclusion, dei. it produces more creative and innovative processes for the agency. one area of training is around employee conduct and employee performance with the equity

inclusion lens. and that's all staff have mandatory nine hours of training that includes appreciating diversity. we have connecting multigenerational issues, age differences, and then we have a three-hour training on lgbtq, promoting respect among hsa as well. the supervisor training sort of falls in two buckets. one is skill to do their job, supervising line workers generally, but the other is in an area around advancement in the agency and promotion, sort of ensuring that supervisors have the opportunity to improve their skills an abilities as a supervisor but also with an eye of moving up within the organization. so all supervisors go through harassment and bullying prevention training as well as ethics training. and then the additional training i'm talking about, one is to be better supervisors, right, so that entails coaching your

employees rather than disciplining them. coaching them and training them on how to write improvement plans. training on emotional intelligence, coaching for execution. then on the promotion track, we offer a management academy that allows sort of supervisors and other mid level employees of the agency to get training skills of management and moving up -- with an eye towards moving up. >> in your training module, do you include implicit bias is this. >> we do. >> thank you. >> thank you for the question. okay. and then customized training upon request is important. if at least a third-party training -- you see davis has an extensive curriculum, if staff sees those, we very often send individuals or cohorts of staff

to that. and the next thing is around competency model and a successful roadmap. what that means, what it attempts to do is make transparent the skills and knowledge required for successful performance in a job. it's a framework that's accessible to all staff. competencies try to be clear and measurable and observable so it's not just this sort of -- when i'm applying for a job, it's nebulous. i don't know what areas to focus on. it's this is what we're looking at for an entry level social worker? the purpose is to be fair, consistent, build trust, increase accountability and maybe, most importantly, combat inequity that can rear itself in the hiring process. what are success roadmaps? this is trying to -- it lays

out, for employees passed for promotional opportunities -- a huge agency, 2,400 employees, it's not clear when you enter as an entry level eligibility caseworker what opportunities there may be to promote. the analyst path, supervisor, mid manager. we try to lay out what things look like and what the skills are that people need to have to build on and promote up. in terms of success roadmaps -- i mentioned this just now -- ready accessible roadmaps for obtaining education and help fost foster inclusion of an agency. i'm a big believer in promoting from within.

i think you look at private sectors that thrive, and it's about culture at the beginning and having that -- as long as it's the right culture and pervasive and it's the right culture, having that bleed through the organization from the bottom up. i think that contributes to a healthy organization. the next is sort of what do we do to ensure fairness in hiring? we do more than that. we determine that the criteria for screening before any of the applications are reviewed. i talked about the competencies. what are we looking at? the efficiencies in excel or supervising other staff. whatever. it's a filter that ensures when every application is screened, the screener is looking at the same things. >> uniform. >> it's uniform. we review and evaluate the filter criteria to make sure

they're job-related and merit-based and not discriminatory. these are things people need to have to succeed in the job. the interview process itself, make sure it's consistent and based on competencies. we review and develop all of those competencies with the review panel saying, this is what you're looking for and even prior to the interview panel, talking about how implicit bias can get in the way of you evaluating someone's competencies, and so we ensure that. we also ensure that our panels are diverse in composition while maintaining the integrity of the subject knowledge. we want our panels to look like what our staff looks like and what our customers and clients look like. i mentioned that the training around implicit bias and common rating errors, when hiring managers or when interview panels make and then post

reviewing the processes, making sure they're in compliance with fairness and equity in our hiring principles, and that's reviewing the notes and the ratings and are they consistent. the next is data collection. i think this is the one where we're most behind, largely due to the systems. you've asked these questions. do we look at differences in folks in terms of performance plans, folks who are dismissed, probation. we're moving and thanks to the executive directive from mayor breed and changes in people soft, we're going to be able to do this. critically important, right? is there a particular group getting disciplined? does it fall under a supervisor or manager? all that stuff to look at so we're not flying blind and sort of guessing on some areas that are vitally important to a

health -- healthy organization. the last, it was mentioned about the gar project. we chose to focus on gar internally. we want to address internal operations in the agency related to hiring, professional advancement, leadership development, and culture. we've convened a work group. it's 15 staff from the agency. so it's through volunteers. making sure one public face from each staff is there so folks interact with the public. and then focus groups with over 80 staff. trying to do the quantitative analysis of some of our bigger classifications. we have hundreds of 2905 classification eligibility workers, for example. 2940 master's in social work,

folks that work in our child protective services and adult protective services, kind of the bigger groups and are there trends there we're seeing. that's all to inform what we're going to do. that's going to -- and we don't know yet, right? we're going to use data and staff to inform what our racial equity plan looks like. that will hopefully be finished in january of 2019. so very soon. and we're entering the second part of the gar project. one of the things we're thinking about doing, and i think supervisor ronen or maybe fewer recommended sort of a city department of equity. i i think it's important for large departments to have an office of equity or office of racial equity there's three

different departments in a single agency, but having a single office with staff and a manager who can look at this process and say, hey, why do we appear to be racially underrepresented at the managerial levels? is it every step? it may not just be hiring at the interview. are we recruiting? where are we recruiting? where are people not doing well? exams? experience? background? is it the interview process? who is on the panel? it's breaking down the very large process at which has several points at which each can contribute to a lack of diversity at the upper levels of an organization. so that's the closure of my report. >> you must be doing something right. i don't hear very many complaints from not only clients but city employees. >> i appreciate that, president cohen, but i assure you we have

a long way to go. >> okay. there's nothing wrong with bettering our best. [ laughter ] >> director, i have a question for you. >> yes, president. >> are all departments gare participants? >> participants in the executive directi directive? >> no. it's an optional thing. most of our department is -- i know planning is and you've heard from several hours. it's sponsored by the human rights commission. >> which departments are not? >> i don't have that list. i can get it from them. >> i think i saw sheryl davis in the audience? is she still here? she may not be. i'll get that information. i'm curious to know which departments are not participating. >> i think they tend to be departments that are a little larger because it requires you typically sending two people and they're out of the office for weeks at a time -- or for a

significant amount of training over a two-year period, so i think a very tiny department is likely to participate just because of resources. >> you have an example of a very tiny department? >> probably four employees or five, and they're unlikely to have the resources to send somebody for that amount of time. it's very -- a very significant training program. it requires a lot of investment. >> does dcyf participate? >> i do not know the answer to that. i will find out. >> okay. i appreciate it. okay, folks. we're going to continue to move forward. let's hear the other element and voices of today's hearing. i want to recognize and call up the reverend dr. amos brown. he's a former member of this body, and he is on a team of speakers. we'll hear from reverend brown

first and then joseph bryant, teresa jones, canton, and burrows. reverend brown, welcome. oh, my goodness. also, just to acknowledge the hearing speakers, mr. david canon has requested a 20-minute time for presentation. welcome, reverend brown. >> madam chair, thank you very much. to all the members of the board of supervisors, i, first of all, very grateful that you have given the leadership along with the mayor to deal with this very serious matter. you know, back in the early 30s, 40s, 50s, there was a

commentator named gabriel heater. he will come on during those war years particularly, saying, good evening. there's good news tonight. [ laughter ] >> well, i was on my phone because i just got some good news. would you believe that mr. charles johnson, one of the major owners of the giants, sent me a letter indicating that he made a misstep. the ball was fumbled. but we're going to retrieve that ball and make a touchdown for justice in this town. with the giants. >> audience: yes. >> reverend brown: i hope i can say that's good news with the

city in this regard, regarding how black employees have been treated, so grossly unfair, but this is not the first time, friends. if you study history, in the 1858, this town was such an unjust, bigoted town until over 800 blacks got on the commodore ship that was owned by brother negley. he said, if they won't let you have housing in san francisco, if they won't let you serve on juries, if they won't let you have a job, get aboard my ship. all of you can go up to canada, and there you will find freedom and dignity and opportunity.

and, friends, i hope that this night we can have the commitment to make some good news for san francisco in these times that we live. for it's long overdue. we don't need any more analysis. we don't need any of these false narratives comparing the populations. we had 17%. that's what we ought to be going by. there was a time when we had up to 100,000 african-americans in this city. now we don't have enough left to even feel -- fill the old 49ers stadium, candlestick park. we can turn this around. let us be like charles johnson. retrieve this ball and make a touchdown. we made a touchdown for people who wanted to come to this country and breathe free when we

made san francisco a sanctuary city. [ applause ] >> reverend brown: we made a touchdown when the governor and my friends, gavin newsome. if we can make touchdown on wga marriage and a touchdown on -- talking about how wrongly they've been treated, looked over, pushed back, and not given opportunity. i beg you don't let courage skip your generation. do the right thing. and the world will applaud you. [ applause ] >> thank you.

[ please stand by ]

>> thank you, so much, supervisor fewer. i also want to acknowledge the mayor, mayor breed for the executive perspective that she signed a few months ago at this point in time and what is interesting to me about this is that it was done in some sort of coordination with d.h.r. and a number of the things that were assigned in the executive directive were some that we are asked for. we can't come up with a better assessment so i want to make sure there is frustration that there is full acknowledgement from d.h.r. in regards to this. some of the information we have asking for for a long time pick its been a process to get to this point. similarly to what dr reverend brown said, san francisco puts its mind and heart into

something, we make it a reality. we have accomplished some really tremendous feats, become the first city in the country to mate -- me to $15 an hour and july 2018, which we should acknowledge. we let the way and became the first city in the united states to issue marriage license and same-sex marriage licenses in 2004. we have been the leader on so many fronts in regards to environmental -- being proactive in regards to protecting the environment and climate change. so that leads to the question, when do people of color become a priority in san francisco? that is why we are here today. the black population in san francisco is hemorrhaging. it has been hemorrhaging. if the census trends continue from the last study that was

done, which i believe is somewhat conservative, because it does not incorporate all the postrecession impacts and wealth distribution that took place over the last ten years, in two years, the black population -- just take in those numbers. in two not years, the black population in san francisco will be 4.27%. down from 13.4% at a point to, which is a 70% decline in a fifty-year period. in 12 years, the black population will be at 3.44%. in 22 years, the black population will be at 2.4 1%, if it stays on this trajectory. by 2050, the black population will slightly hover over 1% in san francisco. part of the reason why we continue to bring this issue up

and continue to bring this issue back to the board, this is a microcosm to what's taking place in san francisco, and with that, i want to share some of the data that was provided by d.h.r. to us that they did not cover on our side. if i can use the projector, please? >> san francisco government television, please. >> this first number here, again , is using d.h.r.'s information in regards to the rays -- race of the city and county workforce. specifically speaking, we will look at the number of 15.6, if that shows there peerk yes, it does. it is the african-american density of workers. this thing is a little tricky. just for the idea that we are using d.h.r.'s information here.

and others like that we want to touch on, hopefully it covers it so this slide here is the annual average high salary in the top five classification by racial groups. and i believe supervisor fewer touched on this earlier. the top five classifications for african americans, which are transit operators, recreational leaders, general labourers, public service trainees, public service aids, comes out to 67,000, and compared to other counterparts, and i will bring it down, the white numbers, a little bit higher there. it is 150,000. less than twice of that amount. these are dealing with the top five. we may say, that number can be skewed, but i will follow that up with the next slide. which shows the number of black

workers in the lowest paid classification. in low pay classifications, which are classifications under the average f. sciu page. seventy-five% of african-american workers fall in that category, which is less than the average of what the average sciu employee in san francisco receives. again, only three% are in the highest paid classes. here is where it starts to get a bit more sinister as we think about -- is this just circumstance, or is it something else? again, these numbers, or the conversation was discussed in terms of disciplinary dismissals as you can see from this chart, although african-americans only make up 15% of the population of

city workers, 36% of the disciplinary dismissals were african-american, to show disproportionality. here is what that chart shows like -- looks like in another graph. again, if you compare it to any other group in san francisco, or any other primary ethnic group in san francisco, you do not see that type of disproportionality. the next up, this is one where we appreciate the board of supervisors for bringing this up multiple times. this graph does not even make sense to me. it is a probationary releases, provided by d.h.r. from 2014- 2018, which shows over 200 african american probationary releases, over 200 a.p.i. probationary releases.

but three white probationary releases over a four year period it is baffling how that can be justified in any way, and the fact that this hasn't been proactively addressed, prior to this being brought to the board of supervisors, is equally as baffling. in the last -- and the last one i want to touch on, in terms of our numbers was the medical separations. you see the disproportionality. the one that god just goes off the screen is the african-american employees again , which is indicative of what we have been discussing. what we have been bringing to d.h.r. what we have been bringing to anybody who will listen. it gets to the point where it's simple. where do we go from here? is a city ready to stand up like it has done remarkably and in so

many other areas. is it willing to do that for its people of color in san francisco is it willing to do that for african-americans in san francisco? that is a question that we pose. we appreciate your leadership. we have faith in this body to help us come to a solution. that is real. that is not just putting lipstick on a pig in regards to training or the identification or in regards -- this is deep. in order for us to get to the root cause, we need to dig deeper. we need to work collaboratively. we need to work creatively in regards to solving this issue. we appreciate your time here. i will pass it over to the next person on our team. i will let the board president to do so. >> no applause, please. we have lots to get through here i want to recognize the fact

that this component, this presentation is part of the hearing and to not be attributed to public comment. although i do have agreements from the presenter that they are going to keep it tight and concise. i'm sorry. supervisor kim, i did see you. forgive me. >> i had a question for mr brian if that's okay. the data that you showed and presented today is really stunning. i wish we had an opportunity to see some of the government audit and oversight committee. i was curious where the data was compiled on the salaries, in particular. >> sure. it was information provided to us by d.h.r. and our researcher. she tried to be as accurate as possible so it was a weighted calculation that tried to give the truest description as possible in regards to that information. >> i think we can celebrate percentages and even say, make

statements, for example, like we have double the percentage of african-americans in our workforce as residents of san francisco. i think supervisor brown made a very good point about the displacement of african-americans from our city and how a lot of that was not voluntary. i am actually really stunned by the salary discrepancy. these numbers really mask what people are making. as we talk about economic justice, it is really about what people are earning and not just to has a job. although that is also important. the discrepancy of how much people are making by racial categories is stunning but also the data point that you showed, a percentage of african-americans that are in the lowest rung in the salaries and the highest rung is just so stark. any percentages we are presenting really masks the income in dish inequality

against african-americans and city workers. i'm really happy to see that the only way we can address this is intentionally. it is never going to happen through videos and percentages that we put out there. i just think that it's really incumbent upon the department knowing this to make some intentional efforts to change the discrepancy. we have the staff -- fastest growing income gap between the rich and the poor in the nation according to the institute in san francisco. i would be -- i'm sure we would be even more chagrined to see how it breaks down via race here in san francisco. i just wanted to thank you for that. i wanted to understand where the data comes from. i just have to say it is stunning and disgraceful. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> yes, i just wanted to mention to supervisor kim that our office requested a lots of

detailed data and i think one of those -- that those were the data points that we requested. and absolutely right. when we saw that, it was very, very telling. >> thank you. again, colleagues, i appreciate your patience. this has been an unorthodox approach to a public hearing pick one we traditionally have in the chamber. i appreciate your consent and understanding that i think this issue warrants. a new approach by all of us who have -- for all of us to have the city's approach contained a new and go down a new pathway focused, ultimately, we are responsible. i want to give ms. miss jones an opportunity to say a few words. >> okay. thank you, madam president. i would like to say thank you on behalf of the board of supervisors for voting -- the

six supervisors who did vote for us to come to the committee as a whole. i will take a little different approach in giving statistics and talk about black workers and what i would like for each supervisor to do, if it is not -- if you are not working on information around the committee of the hold that you would give the black workers who come up to this podium and this microphone respect. because we are here because we are in pain. we have been suffering for years we are traumatized on our jobs every single day. we are experiencing retaliation. we are experiencing hostile work environment his. we are experiencing not being able to be the experts that we are in our department his with

masters degrees. we are experiencing something that we have come up here to beseech you to hear us. to help us solve this racist, discriminatory act against black workers. for those department heads who have come up to this podium, this was a dog and pony show for acting. because if, in fact,, your figures are correct, black workers would not be standing here. we would not be taking off our jobs, missing pay. this is a serious issue. it is not to nothing new. it's not nothing new. this has been going on since 1964 when the first report on african-americans was implemented by the city and

county of san francisco. from 1964 to 1968, published in 1993. another report has been published again in 2009. another report was published again in 2012. so you cannot sit here and tell us about what you are doing for black workers. you are not doing anything. i've been working with the sheriff's department for ten years. for eight years i have been targeted, i have been in a hostile work environment, i have been assaulted, for eight straight years. i have so many eeo up at the department of human resources that it is just asinine. do you want to know why we don't go quote we do not get anything from it.

we don't get nothing. [applause] >> why are you going to go and sit in front of someone who doesn't look like you, doesn't understand you, and then after you pour your heart out to them, then they send you a letter saying, we don't have enough information for an investigation we are tired kick and each and every one of you, you os. you are obligated to us. you are obligated to help us turn this around. because the truth has been told, supervisor brown, as you heard the second time now. there is something seriously wrong, supervisor ronen. the sheriff's department tore down a viable program that i implemented. president cohen, you was there when you first ran for the board of supervisors. supervisor ronen, how many times have you come up to the jail to witness the program?

reverend brown, how many times, this was for young, black, and brown inmates. instilling in them hope that they could turn their lives around. and they tore it down. and do you know why they tore it down quiet let's talk about it for a minute. let's talk about it. because of your training. we have been talking about implicit bias. explicit bias. implicit bias is not implicit bias when once you tell them what they are doing and they continue to do it. then it becomes explicit bias. then we have the halo effect. the halo effect of bias in which we are under subjection to is that the tendency to think everything about a person is good because you like them. while we are not like other jobs we are not -- we are under the

halo effect. we are not liked. the second part is perception bias. the tendency to form stereotypes , assumptions about certain groups that make it impossible to be objective. and the last one is that confirmation bias, which is the tendency for people to seek information which a lot of our supervisors do, to seek information that confirms pre-existing beliefs or assumptions that they have made about a person or a group. and then we talk about inequality. pursuing the same treatment of others. equity. to provide everyone with what

they need to be successful. black workers are not getting that. so let's be clear. all the information on the presentations for us, a dog and pony show. we want it to stop. the thing of it is that the status quo, as we know of it, does not look like us. the status quo is the people who are in control, and they do not look like us. and we want some type of representation in the city and county of san francisco for this to change for black workers. because we are hurting. we are suffering. we are in pain. we are traumatized. and is no use of going to you, mickey callahan. it is no use. >> wait, wait. we have to keep this professional and not make this

personal. >> we are not giving it a fair chance. it is personal, madam president. it is very personal. we are in pain. we are in pain. i want every board of supervisors to understand that. i want you to feel it, and i want you to help us to resolve these issues in the city and county of san francisco when it comes to black workers. thank you very much. [applause] >> teresa rutherford while. >> good afternoon. i want to thank the board of supervisors for convening this meeting to give us another opportunity to speak to a very systemic and very painful experience that we have been having for over 100 years.

racism has been infused into our culture and our country and to the psyche. we see it at the white house. we see it everywhere. however, san francisco has always held itself up as a beacon. we are demanding that you live up to that standard and you maintain that. that you be the beacon that shines. right now we met in september and you heard the pain. i mean, we don't even have to come back here and speak to it. every kind of atrocity, every kind of abuse you can think of happened, has been happening and continues to happen. even as we speak, we heard about all the systems in place, all the methods for grievances, however, we do know that the systems are there, but they're not being implemented. we know that people are not

being treated fairly. we know that in grievances when there are investigations, they are very shoddy. they are not fair, they are not done well. it has taken as if it was nothing. how many times have we seen a case where it is he said she said, but the black worker gets fired? how many times have we seen where a black worker is injured on the job, heard by a patient or hurts by the public or whomever, and it is your fault, what could you have done differently? it is always our fault. it is time for that to change. we came in september and we spoke to you. we opened our hearts as we always do. but i think we need something different. we need implementation. we need change. the mayor has the mandate to have all the changes effected. that was in september.

the mandate is it should be implemented in january. we are almost in december. where is the blueprint? something should have happened already. what will happen? everything will just happen overnight in january? come on, now. it is time for everyone to get serious. mickey, you have to get serious. you have to get it done. it is not enough to give a nice beach here. we know that you have seen -- you have seen the statistics, but you have also been in these meetings where we have seen hard and painful things happen. in 2009, between 2009 and 2010, we had a couple hundred workers, for example, who are skilled. it is another way of applying racist policies, of making sure that people are kept underpaid and are abused in every kind of way in the workplace.

and these workers were fired, particularly nurses and clerks. some of the lowest paid in the city who were fired under the guise that the city needed its budget to be balanced, and rehired at much lower pay. that was never corrected. as we are talking about being fair and restoring justice, how about starting to look at some of those old wounds that are still open that need to be addressed. some of those things must be addressed. don't tell me that we need to go to bargaining to fix this. this is one that is so glaring. in fact, the special budget committee meeting of the board of supervisors in november 20 th, 28 --dash 2009, the chairman said regarding the descaling, i truly believe that

with these classifications that have been their skills downgraded, we have only singled out a part of the workforce. the higher-paying people were never touched. so this is how racism works. it is not always that someone looks at me and calls me a [ bleep ] or whatever. it is also about making sure i never promote, as we speak, there were lpns who were in this room who did their work, went to school, got promoted from being nurse assistance back and they are reachable. they have not been called. they remain in the lower paying job that they started out as, but they continued to carry a higher classification skill set. they are not hired. let's be real. >> i want to remind you, you are

addressing this body. your eye contact, your words, your actions. >> yes. because the people that are in here are also the people who have caused us pain and have sat over and being part of a system that should have been fixed. we did not need these statistics we knew this was happening years ago. i joined this in 2002 and this was happening. so it is not to new. it is sad that it took a hearing it took us marching and doing all kinds of stuff for this just to stick, this tracking, for people to even be thinking about this. we know that this happens and this tracking should have been part and parcel of the process years ago. it didn't need to have a hearing for people to start thinking about stats. h.r. should have thought of this it is sad. right now, we need implementation. we need things to happen. it is over. talking is over and statistics are over.