Unionized Allegheny General Hospital nurses are scheduled to vote Nov. 2 on whether to continue negotiations for a new labor agreement or issue a 10-day notice of a walkout.

The vote turns up the heat on contract talks for some 1,200 registered nurses who are members of SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania. A 3-year contract for the nurses expired Oct. 13 and the nurses on Oct. 18 authorized their bargaining committee to call a strike as talks continued.

A strike would be a first at the Allegheny Health Network hospital, the flagship institution in a 14-hospital system. The vote will follow multiple labor rallies in Pittsburgh since June that have drawn wide support from Democratic elected officials, from Mayor Ed Gainey to members of the state General Assembly. Whether the union can turn that support into contract gains — which include a demand for a 31% increase in the starting wage for new nurses to $40 an hour — isn’t known.

The challenge for AHN corporate parent Highmark Inc. will be to restrain rising costs at a time of flat reimbursement from government and other health insurers, while attracting and retaining talent when there are not enough nurses in the job market to fill openings. Virtually every hospital in the U.S., including those in AHN, has had to use high-cost temporary staffing nurses to fill shifts.