UnityPoint Health nurses and Teamsters Local 90 are planning to take to the streets of Des Moines in their effort to unionize.
Nurses at UnityPoint voted 871-666 in December 2025 to join the Teamsters, but 251 ballots ― more than enough to tip the balance ― remain challenged and uncounted awaiting a ruling from the National Labor Relations Board. A total of 1,788 registered nurses at UnityPoint’s Iowa Methodist Medical Center, Blank Children’s Hospital and Iowa Lutheran Hospital in Des Moines and Methodist West Hospital in West Des Moines participated in the union vote.
Seeking action on the vote, the Teamsters will march from the Iowa Capitol to UnityPoint’s Iowa Methodist Medical Center starting at 10 a.m. June 8.
UnityPoint nurses rally outside the hospital for a union contract on Aug. 20, 2025, in Des Moines.
“While we continue to wait for the NLRB to act, we are continuing to push the certification/contract campaign forward through community pressure with the goal of executing the largest event our local union has ever put on,” Alano De La Rosa, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 90, wrote in a text message announcing the event.
Amber Angerer, lead organizer for the Teamsters, said the nurses have “been in purgatory” since the union vote and that UnityPoint has been trying to delay certification of the results by filing objections.
“We can’t get the NLRB to move any faster. Our goal is to try and get (UnityPoint) to let go of their objections and agree to certify the vote and then start bargaining a contract,” Angerer said.
UnityPoint did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The hospital system contended in one of its objections that 138 nurses were unfairly excluded from voting due to an outdated eligibility cutoff date.
Also among UnityPoint’s 12 objections were some aimed at the NLRB itself, including a claim that during the Dec. 7-9 vote “NLRB agents engaged in misconduct by failing to maintain the secrecy, integrity, sanctity, and gravitas of the election and voting process.”
In an emailed statement following the vote, Kevin Kirkpatrick, senior media relations specialist for UnityPoint, said the nonprofit has “reason to believe the discriminatory manner in which the union abused the challenged ballot process created confusion and uncertainty about whose vote would ultimately matter.”
But Teamsters Local 90 President Tanner Fischer, in an interview with the Des Moines Register following the vote, characterized UnityPoint’s allegations as “just more delay tactics” and expressed confidence the union will prevail.
The record-long government shutdown from Oct. 1 through Nov. 12, 2025, played a role in the disagreement between the union and UnityPoint. The original vote was supposed to be from Oct. 5-7 but was delayed because the shutdown included the NLRB and its vote monitors.
An NLRB-approved agreement between UnityPoint and the union, reached in August 2025, specified that to be eligible to vote, nurses had to have been employed at one of the hospitals prior to Aug. 23. UnityPoint contends that from Aug. 23 to the December vote, it hired or transferred into the eligible bargaining unit 138 nurses and that the eligibility agreement should be changed to allow them to join in the balloting.
NLRB Regional Director Jennifer A. Hadsall denied the November request by UnityPoint, with the Teamsters arguing that the agreement was a binding contract and that when it was reached in August, the shutdown and resulting delay in the election could be foreseen.
“If the Company wanted to ensure that bargaining unit employees hired during any shutdown-related delay period prior to the election had the opportunity to vote, this could have and should have been written into the contract. It was not,” a Teamsters attorney wrote.
In a reference to the 138 added employees, the union also suggested that “the Company took advantage of the government shutdown to intentionally stack the bargaining unit.”
Kevin Baskins covers jobs and the economy for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at kbaskins@registermedia.com.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: UnityPoint nurses to march in Des Moines over union vote certification
