DES MOINES, Iowa ( IOWA CAPITAL DISPATCH ) - The unionization vote for nurses working at UnityPoint hospitals has been delayed indefinitely due to the federal government shutdown, according to hospital officials.

The effort for the “United Nurses of Iowa” sought to create a union for roughly 2,000 nurses working at the four UnityPoint hospitals in the Des Moines metropolitan area: Iowa Methodist Medical Center, Blank Children’s Hospital, Methodist West Hospital and Iowa Lutheran Hospital. Organized through the Teamsters Local 90, employees who would be in the proposed bargaining group were supposed to begin voting Sunday on whether to unionize through the National Labor Relations Board.

The nurses involved in the unionization effort called for the health care system to voluntarily reco

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