(Radio Iowa) – Organizers say a majority of nurses at four hospitals in the Des Moines metro have signed cards indicating they want to join the Teamsters Union. Several nurses spoke at rally near one of the hospitals yesterday Wednesday.

Colin Russell, a nurse who works in the I-C-U at Iowa Methodist in downtown Des Moines, says too many nurses are leaving because managers aren’t listening to their concerns about staffing levels, pay and patient care.

Russell and others at the rally accused hospital management of trying to discourage nurses from forming a union.

United Nurses of Iowa sent a letter to UnityPoint yesterday (Wednesday), asking managers to voluntarily recognize the union and begin contract talks. UnityPoint responded, saying it deeply values each nurse and believes representative by an outside party is not in the best interest of the hospitals, nurses or patients. Hospital managers indicated they would only bargain with Teamsters representatives if UnityPoint nurses at the four central Iowa hospitals vote in a secret ballot election to form a union. About 15-hundred nurses work at Iowa Methodist, Iowa Lutheran, Blank Children’s Hospital and Methodist West Hospitals. The Service Employees International Union represents nurses at Finley Hospital in Dubuque and University of Iowa Health Care. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union represents nurses at MercyOne in Sioux City.