Nurses from Salt Lake Regional Medical Center took to the curbs on 100 South with signs during the lunch hour Friday, frustrated that the ballots from a union vote taken nearly two years ago have never been counted.

Registered nurses at the hospital started talking about joining a labor union in 2001, according to Ronald Harleman, an organizing coordinator with United American Nurses, who came from Denver then to help them organize a vote. He was back to support the protest Friday.

The big issue is whether the nurses want to unionize. But the sub-issue that's holding it all up is the question of a charge nurse's role in the hospital. The nurses maintained that the charge nurses should be eligible to participate in the union vote. Owner IASIS Healthcare said that charge nurses are supervisors and should not be able to vote.

In April 2002, a regional hearing by the National Labor Relations Board decided that since there were about 150 nurses who only at times assume the role of charge nurse, they should be allowed to vote on whether to join a union. IASIS appealed that decision.

And that's where things remain. When the nurses held their vote May 30-June 1, 2002, just under 200 ballots were cast. Then a representative from the NLRB impounded the ballots. Those cast by charge nurses were put in separate envelopes, then placed with the other ballots in a large manila envelope, all under the watchful eye of representatives from both sides. That envelope was sealed and sent to Denver, where it has been ever since, said IASIS spokesman Doug Boudreaux.

The NLRB has indicated it could be another six months or a year before the board decides if the charge nurses' ballots should be counted with others, said Lori Gay, one of the hospital's nurses and chairwoman of the committee that organized the drive to get union membership.

The nurses protesting Friday hope that people will put pressure on IASIS to withdraw the appeal and let the votes be counted.

"We're willing to take our chances with the ballots that have been cast and let the chips fall," said Harleman.

IASIS counters that it's being held up as well. "Their signs say 'stop stalling,' " said Boudreaux. "We're not. We're on the NLRB timetable as well. And as the employees have the right if they want it to vote, we have rights as employers, as well."

The protesters — including a handful of men identifying themselves as "co-op miners in solidarity with nurses" — waved their signs at traffic and got back long horn honks and the occasional siren from a passing ambulance. A few of the nurses had taken their lunch break from shifts upstairs in the hospital behind them to come outside and protest, said Gay.