The vote was 59.4 percent to 40.6 percent in favor of joining Service Employees International Union Healthcare Minnesota, the union said. Workers in the bargaining unit include nursing assistants, dietary aides, environmental services aides, patient care technicians, health unit coordinators and other healthcare professionals.
“By voting to form a union, we showed that we the employees do count and we’re going to look out for patients’ safety and our own safety,” Tania Logacz, a nursing assistant from Coon Rapids, Minn., said in a union news release.
A spokesman for Unity Hospital, which is part of Minneapolis-based Allina Health System, said the hospital respects the workers’ decision, according to the Star Tribune.
“We will continue to focus on encouraging all hospital employees — those who supported the union and those who did not — to come together and work as a team,” Allina said in a statement, according to the report.
The bargaining unit will now begin negotiating their first contract with Unity Hospital.
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