ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) - Nurses at a hospital in Asheville, North Carolina, have voted to unionize and gain the power to bargain over their benefits and working conditions.
The Citizen-Times reported a ballot count on Thursday morning showed that there were roughly twice as many “yes” votes by Mission Hospital nurses than there were votes against forming a union.
The vote concluded a year-long effort by nurses and union representatives to organize. It also comes less than two years after HCA Healthcare bought the hospital as part of a $1.5 billion sale.
The 1,600 registered nurses who work at Mission Hospital and the St. Joseph campus will be represented by National Nurses United, the nation’s largest nurses’ union.
The hospital had opposed the union effort. It said a union would ultimately hurt the hospital’s quality of care and could cause its labor costs to “increase materially.”
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