Registered nurses at Loretto, a non-profit hospital in Chicago's Austin neighborhood that mainly serves the uninsured and patients on Medicaid, voted this week to get union representation from the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME. WBEZ reports that AFSCME has tried for a decade to unionize hospital nurses in Chicago.

The unionization follows a big victory in Springfield for Loretto, which was one of the safety net hospitals that successfully staved off cuts in state Medicaid payments.