More than 1,100 Kadlec techs and service workers plan to go on strike for seven days in August.

The strike by members of SEIU Healthcare 1199NW will start Aug. 20, the union said in an announcement. The striking workers – who don’t include nurses – are taking the action to “denounce Providence executives’ bad-faith bargaining and refusal to settle a strong contract with investments in wages and staffing that respect frontline workers’ experience, no matter where they work in the Providence system,” the union said in a statement. 

Kadlec is part of the Providence health system.

In its own statement, Kadlec said it’s “disappointed the union has not accepted our competitive offers, has presented unrealistic counterproposals, and has chosen to strike.”

Strikes don’t support progress toward settling contracts, the statement said.

“Kadlec has been negotiating in good faith, and we know progress cannot be made if we are not at the bargaining table,” the hospital said in the statement.

All Kadlec facilities and services will remain open and operating during the strike, the hospital said, noting that it’s contracted with a staffing agency, which is standard for hospitals in a strike.

The union and Kadlec have been bargaining for months.

Union members are seeking wages that better line up with their counterparts at Providence Swedish in Seattle. While executives in the Tri-Cities are paid similarly to executives at the west side facility, the wage ranges for frontline workers in similar job classes “show significant disparities between the two locations,” the union said in its statement.

Kadlec’s ability to recruit and retain workers is at stake, the union said, noting that Providence executives at the Richland hospital have proposed raises of “pennies over the minimum wage” for the lowest paid job classes in the first year of the contract being negotiated.

A turning point was a bargaining session on Aug. 8 where members of the union bargaining team, which is made up of frontline workers, shared personal stories of hardship caused by “stagnant and insufficient wages,” the union statement said.

The stories were met with “disregard and a pointed lack of sympathy,” the union said.

“We’ve bargained with Kadlec in good faith, and as bargaining team members, we’ve depleted our PTO banks to show up at the bargaining table and get this contract settled; we’ve been very candid about our coworkers’ financial situation and our own difficulties making ends meet and supporting our families. There’s been no compassion, no real acknowledgment of our sacrifices, and very little urgency toward settling a contract that we can bring back to our coworkers,” said Mona Chalmers, a certified nursing assistant and member of the bargaining team, in the statement.

Jane Hopkins, a registered nurse and president of SEIU Healthcare 1199NW, added that, “Kadlec frontline workers are performing the same jobs and providing the same high-quality care as their counterparts in Seattle; they deserve the same pay. When pay differentials based on geography don’t appear to apply to its executives, only to frontline health care workers, it sends a message — that they don’t respect the experience of the staff who make Kadlec run and care for the Tri-Cities.”

In its statement, Kadlec said the hospital bargaining team “passed multiple strong proposals to the union that would provide immediate and significant wage increases averaging 15.98% for our caregivers, with additional increases over the next three years.” 

Meanwhile, the union continues to propose an average wage increase of over 40% – “far and above what other employers pay for the same jobs across Eastern Washington,” Kadlec said, noting that Seattle – home to Swedish – is one of the most expensive cities in the state.

The hospital said it looks forward to returning to bargaining when the strike is over “with a continued commitment to negotiating a fair and competitive contract for our caregivers.”