SALT LAKE CITY?Nurses at Salt Lake Regional Medical Center will vote to decide whether to join the United American Nurses union.

The National Labor Relations Board office in Denver may rule as early as this week on a Feb. 1 petition for an election.

More than two-thirds of the hospital’s registered nurses signed the petition.

If Salt Lake Regional’s nurses join the union, it will be a first for the state, committee authorities said. The UAN, the largest registered nursing union in the country, with more than 100,000 members, has no Utah chapters.

“We just want a voice,” said Lori Gay, a member of the organizing committee at Salt Lake Regional.