Approximately 150 Barton Health nurses could become the only group of employees at the South Lake Tahoe, Calif.-based healthcare system to unionize, according to the Tahoe Daily Tribune.
The nurses are slated to vote this week on whether to join the California Nurses Association.
In discussing the reasoning behind the vote, the union claims nurses face a divisive work environment created by the hospital, according to the report.
But the hospital disagreed and expressed its desire to the Tahoe Daily Tribune that management communicate openly with workers without a union.
"The nurses have a right to unionize and administration is fully supportive of that right and for their right to vote," Barton Health President and CEO Clint Purvance, MD, said in an emailed statement. "And whether the nurses decide to have a union or not, administration will continue to work with them with our core values of respectful communication and safety and efficiency … that working relationship and that commitment to our nurses will not change. We are 100 percent pro nursing here."
The last union election at Barton Health, in which employees voted against unionization, took place nearly three decades ago.
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