April 21 – The strike at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center will begin Monday. From 2 p.m., the hospital’s 500 technical employees are expected to go out and criticize their employer.

Workers gathered Friday evening at the offices of United Food and Commercial Workers International Union 3000 in Spokane to learn how to be strike leaders — charged with leading the pickets and ensuring safety.

Pediatric cardiac sonographer Mark Kehoe said he volunteered to be a strike captain because he “had never felt more disrespected in his life” than during recent contract negotiations with Providence.

‘They did not negotiate, not in good faith. Providence has made it clear to us that they don’t care about us,” he said.

The weeklong strike will be a “financial burden” for Kehoe, but he believes it is “worth doing something important.” It’s his first strike in his 32-year career at Providence, but Kehoe is “excited” to be on the picket line.

“I’ll be there every day. At least for my five-hour shift and probably longer. I told my family not to expect to see me often,” he said. “My family supports me. They have seen me come home tired and grumbling and they understand that I have a high-pressure job. And they are 100% behind me and what we are trying to do.”

Sacred Heart surgical tech Angela Holmes, on the other hand, is “anxious” as the strike approaches.

“I’ve been working for Sacred Heart for 25 years. And I’ve never been in this position before. I just don’t know what to expect,” she said. “It won’t be easy, but I feel like this is just the next step in what we need to do to hopefully convince Providence that we are important people,” she said.

Before the same meeting, UFCW 3000 campaign director and chief negotiator Jackie Williams was packing supplies to take to a hotel near the hospital that will serve as the union’s base of operations during the strike. Williams said she would rather negotiate with Providence than prepare for the strike.

“If they really want to avert the strike and not organize a strike, they would be negotiating with us now,” she said.

Providence stopped negotiating with the union when they filed a 10-day strike notice. According to Susan Stacey, CEO of Providence Inland Northwest, the hospital system was unable to negotiate because it had to focus all its resources on preparing for the strike.

“As soon as we receive a strike notice, our attention shifts from negotiating to preparing. We need to take these ten days to prepare because the primary focus now is on being able to take care of our community and remain open and ready for the patients going home. When the strike is over, we will turn our attention back to getting back to the table and negotiating,” Stacey said last week.

Williams doesn’t believe that explanation, calling it “baffling” and “almost punitive” toward the workers.

‘They can negotiate. They choose not to,” she said.

In an interview with The Spokesman-Review, Stacey echoed that same sentiment in the opposite direction.

“We did not choose this. UFCW has chosen this,” she said last week.

The subject of the negotiations is pay, which the union says is not market competitive with other local hospital systems. According to Stacey, Providence last offered an across-the-board wage increase of 7% to 9.75%, as well as further increases based on different job types.

Under the previous contract, base pay for all positions within the bargaining unit ranged from $19.72 per hour for a nutrition center technician to $39.04 per hour for some types of nuclear medicine technologists. While most positions above the pay scale range between $30 and $40 per hour, the highest paid and most experienced nuclear medicine technologists reach up to $60 per hour under the expiring contract.

Union spokesperson Anna Minard said that while technical workers are not as visible as doctors or nurses, they are just as important to the smooth running of a hospital.

“They are in the operating rooms to make sure nothing goes wrong. They provide patient care and medications. They do x-rays or ultrasounds. These are highly skilled professions,” Minard said.

Here is a list of some of the jobs covered by the tech workers union.

* Surgical technologists

* Cardiovascular technologists

* Pharmacy technicians

* Nuclear medicine technologists

* Respiratory therapists

* Mental health technicians and counselors

*Maternity Technicians

* Sonographers

* Phlebotomists

* Radiology technologists

UFCW 3000 is supported by the Sacred Heart nurses union. In a statement, Ruth Schubert, spokesperson for the Washington State Nurses Association, said nurses should wear a sticker to support their colleagues.

“WSNA nurses recognize that these technology workers provide essential services that are essential to high-quality care for our patients. We fully support our technology colleagues in their fight for a fair contract,” she said in a statement.

Schubert also noted that overtime is voluntary and that nurses “can refuse to work overtime without fear of retaliation.”

Kehoe said he looks forward to helping children again when the strike ends.

“I have parents and families counting on me, and I would much rather be there with them than on a picket line,” he said.

“It’s satisfying to help families there and go through some very difficult times with them. I often break down and cry with them. “But from the initial diagnosis that your child has a heart defect, to undergoing surgeries and follow-ups for the rest of these children’s lives, I will be there,” he said. “For me, that’s one of the most rewarding things in my life.”