DES MOINES, Iowa — UnityPoint workers attempting to unionize gathered outside the hospital Thursday demanding management stop ongoing efforts to discourage unionization.

UnityPoint nurses and workers began working with Teamsters Local 90, a local labor union, in November 2024. Nurses claim pay cuts, worker shortages, unsafe conditions, and previous inaction from management led to the decision.

On Thursday, nurses gathered at UnityPoint Health to deliver a letter outlining previous actions and changes demanded to UnityPoint Market President Jon Rozenfeld.

According to the nurses, UnityPoint began employing nine different anti-union consultants to speak with workers and deter them, often pulling nurses during their shifts.

Cassie Freml, a radiology nurse, has been at UnityPoint for seven years and says the unfair treatment is making work conditions worse for nurses.

“It’s disheartening to see how much of a priority it’s been to foster the misinformation, you know, and see senior leadership encourage people to take time away from their shift duties to go to these meetings,” said Freml. “When I know individuals working in various parts of our hospital that can’t have time permitted away for appropriate breaks for lunch.”

Whitney Armstrong has been with UnityPoint as a critical care nurse for almost ten years and say’s the hospitals treatment goes against everything they stand for.

“So, I mean, these are people who supposedly care about us as nurses, these are people who supposedly care about patients,” said Armstrong. “You know, we matter as one of our big campaigns. But this is the biggest insult and definitely tells us that we don’t matter.”

Teamsters has filed four unfair labor practice charges against UnityPoint for retaliation, intimidation and interrogation, illegal overbroad work rules, and denying access to union officials.

WHO 13 News reached out to UnityPoint Health but have not received a response.