By Staff
Around Osceola
November 20, 2010

Registered nurses at Osceola Regional Medical Center in Kissimmee voted by 92 percent Monday night to join the National Nurses Organizing Committee-Florida, an affiliate of National Nurses United.

In a press release, Charles Idelson, communications director for National Nurses United, said that in a secret ballot election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that oversees labor relations, the local registered nurses voted 354-30 to join the country’s biggest union and professional association of registered nurses.

Some 550 RNs at the hospital, which is part of Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), will be represented by the union, Idelson stated.

Osceola Regional is the first of several HCA hospitals in Florida where registered nurses will be voting in the coming weeks on affiliating with the National Nurses Organizing Committee. Their votes follow election wins earlier this year by HCA nurses in Texas, Missouri and Nevada who also cast ballots for their state nursing organization affiliates, which have won representation elections for more than 6,500 RNs this year.

Local registered nurses will now focus on choosing nurse leaders to represent them in contract talks and targeting such issues as RN-to-patient staffing ratios, a patient care monitoring committee chosen and run by direct care RNs and improved health coverage and retirement benefits.