Nurses at St. Mary’s Hospital voted to unionize with 89% in favor to join Wisconsin’s largest health care union.
The vote was held on June 11 with 511 (89%) in favor of unionizing and 63 (11%) against. St. Mary’s nurses are now officially represented by Service Workers International Union (SEIU) Wisconsin.
Unionization efforts have been ongoing for a year with more formal organizing efforts in late 2025.
Nurses sought to unionize as continued issues within the hospital have worsened in a way they say has impacted quality of care and staff retention via directives from its St. Louis-based parent company SSM Health.
The vote marks the largest private sector union election in Wisconsin this century, SEIU said in a statement.
“Our patient advocacy doesn’t end at the bedside, and that’s why we formed our union,” Emily Berceau, a nurse in St. Mary’s labor and delivery department, said in a statement after the vote. “Ever since high school, it has always been my goal to be a labor and delivery nurse. It’s such an incredible honor to be with families as they work to welcome new life into the world. As a nurse at St. Mary’s, I get to work with some truly exceptional nurses to make a difference in people’s lives every day. With our union, we now have a strong voice to negotiate a contract with the policies, staffing, and retention we need.”
Issues in the hospital include poor retention of nurses, both veteran and new; poor compensation; more pressure to do more with less resources; inability to fully care for patients; a “productivity grid,” which pushes billing over care; cuts to incentive pay; and mandatory overtime.
Poor retention of nurses trickles into all issues that impact the nursing staff. More senior staff have left, due to lack of incentive pay and lack of resources, which negatively affects training for newer nurses. Those newer nurses are then not properly trained and thrust into situations they do not necessarily have the experience to handle, which leads to burn out and an exodus from the hospital or field altogether.
That puts stress on the remaining staff and worsens ratios — and the cycle continues of burn out and leaving St. Mary’s. That in turn impacts the quality of care for patients.
The nurses hope unionizing will help address those issues. Nurses seek to have better pay and benefits, safer staffing based on patient acuity, more time to work with patients, flexible time off and scheduling, higher nurse retention, transparency and accountability in SSM’s decisions and have a respected voice in patient care.
“Nursing feeds the soul, and we formed our union to make sure this profession we love is sustainable,” said Amber Brown, a nurse in St. Mary’s cardiac intermediate care unit. “It means a lot to be there for our community in their most vulnerable moments. In order to be fully present with our patients, we need full staffing, resources, and support. With our union, nurses will be a part of the conversation and what we say will matter.”
The union argues that SSM has more than enough to negotiate a contract that addresses concerns nurses have voiced. Last year, SSM reported $12.6 billion in operating revenue, $1.1 billion in cash and cash equivalents and $483 million in profits.
Next steps are for nurses to fill out surveys to determine their contract proposals and form a negotiating committee. It is expected that it will be some months before formal bargaining sessions start, but SSM is now required by federal labor law to sit down and negotiate a union contract with nurses.
