By: Belinda Carpenter, UnityPoint, Local 90, Des Moines.

Today’s hospitals are routinely over capacity, patient wait times are astronomical, and staffing is dangerously thin.

Nurses are expected to keep the system running no matter the cost to our patients, to our licenses, or to ourselves.

At UnityPoint, we knew that if we didn’t make serious changes to our workplace, patients and staff were going to continue to suffer the consequences. 

That pushed 2,000 nurses to do something unprecedented: organize ourselves and become Teamsters.

UnityPoint is a nonprofit hospital that should be reinvesting back in our community. Instead, executive salaries and yearly bonuses continue to increase.

Rather than collaborating with nurses directly to improve conditions for patients and staff, managers tell us to “re-evaluate” if this is really the career we want.

It wasn’t until we contacted Teamsters Local 90 that we found people who were enthusiastic about supporting us in making change at our hospital.

Finding Inspiration in Each Other

In 2022, union reformers in Local 90 ran against the longtime leadership of the union and won. From the beginning they have defied expectations—as Principal Officer Alano De La Rosa says, “We bite off more than we can chew and then just keep chewing.”

UnityPoint is their largest bite ever. The hospital has over 2,000 potentially eligible members, many with no direct experience of unions. Still, when we told Local 90 leaders we wanted to organize, they were all in.

Slowly the small core of organizers brought people in one by one. We were inspired by the success of the 10,000 nurses at Corewell Health in Michigan who unionized with the Teamsters, and it made us believe that we could do it too.

We called ourselves “United Nurses of Iowa” and set out to educate our co-workers about how a union could improve conditions for all. We formed bonds with people from a variety of political backgrounds with the promise of a real voice on the job.

Answering the Union Busters

As our organizing picked up, so did the repression from UnityPoint. The hospital spent $6 million on anti-union attacks.

We responded by talking nurse to nurse. We set up tables with educational flyers, Teamster swag, snacks, and we made ourselves available to answer questions from other nurses.

We hosted fun events and set up meet-and-greets to continue to connect with our co-workers. At one event an organizer dressed up as the Easter Bunny handed out

candy—that is, until management forced our bunny off the premises.

We went into our community talking to neighbors and asking if they would put up signs in support, and we found that Iowans were overwhelmingly positive.

When it became clear that we were serious about winning our union, the Teamsters sent in support from all over the country. Teamster nurses came from Michigan and California to share their knowledge with our co-workers.

Continuing to Organize

When the votes were finally counted, we voted to go union 871-666. Months of slander hadn’t succeeded. Nurses had come together to build something all our own, and we weren’t going to be intimidated.

Since our win, UnityPoint has filed 12 legal objections, accusing everyone from the nurses to the NLRB to one of its own managers of breaking the rules.

But nurses are not afraid of challenges. We are used to them; we refocus and we keep pushing forward. The challenges can delay but not overturn our election win. We are already taking the next steps: building a contract action team and launching a bargaining survey to prepare for contract negotiations.

We stand together, united and ready for whatever comes next.

Belinda Carpenter is an Emergency Department and Critical Care Nurse and a proud Local 90 Teamster.

Rhode Island Hospital Teamsters Unite for Fair Contract

More than 2,500 Teamsters at Rhode Island Hospital are mobilizing to win a new contract.

Members are uniting to win higher wages, job security, protections against subcontracting, and improvements to staffing and staff turnover.

Teamsters Local 251 represents the non-nurse classifications at the hospital including laundry, housekeeping, clerical, certified nursing assistants, skilled trades, and more.

More than 200 members attended a Contract Campaign Kick-off organized by the Contract Action Team.

Corewell Nurses Authorize Strike

Registered nurses at Corewell Health East have voted by nearly 90% to authorize a strike.

The 10,000 nurses across nine hospitals and campuses in southeastern Michigan have been fighting for their first union contract since they voted to join the Teamsters in June 2025.

Nurses are demanding fair wages, affordable health insurance, improved workplace safety, and safe nurse-to-patient ratios.

“With the strike authorization, we’re getting nurses motivated and tuned in,” said Debbie Miracle, a nurse at Corewell’s Farmington Hills Hospital. “It doesn’t mean we will

definitely strike, but it gives our bargaining team the power to say ‘We have 10,000 nurses standing behind us.’”