Nurses from St. Joseph’s Hospital and St. Mary’s Hospital in Tuscon, Arizona voted Friday to unionize, joining the National Nurses Organizing Committee and National Nurses United, according to a press release.

About 550 nurses at St. Joseph’s and 450 at St. Mary’s are now represented by Tenet Health division of the national union, swelling the group’s membership total to more than 6,000 registered nurses and 14 Tenet facilities across four states.

Both hospitals are part of the Carondelet Health Network in Tucson, which is owned by Tenet Health Corporation based out of Dallas, Texas.

In a 293-110 vote, 73 percent of the nurses at St. Joseph’s voted in favor of unionizing and 221-85, or 72 percent, voted in favor at St. Mary’s. Both votes were conducted by the National Labor Relations Board, according to the press release.

“I am so excited that we will now be able to advocate much more effectively for our patients,” Lowella Choate, a neuro ICU nurse at St. Joseph’s Hospital said in a press release. “I look forward to all that we can achieve by standing together with the 6000- RN-strong NNU Tenet Division at 14 Hospitals throughout the country.”

As Arizona is a right-to-work state, nurses at the hospitals are not required to join the union as a condition of employment and they don’t have to pay union dues even if actions by the union benefit them.

Carondelet Health Network officials told the Arizona Daily Star they would respect the nurses’ decisions and will work with them to reach a “mutually beneficial collective bargaining agreement.”

Nurses at the hospitals will elect a team of colleagues to represent them in talks with hospital officials on a first collective bargaining contract, according to the NNU press release.