450 ambulance workers likely to strike on Friday in Seattle

American Medical Response, the private ambulance provider, said it doesn't plan to re-start salary negotiations, which would prevent the strike.

A strike by Seattle emergency medical technicians is set for noon on Friday, and plans for replacement EMTs remains unclear.

Seattle emergency officials are scrambling ahead of the scheduled strike. About 450 American Medical Response employees in Seattle, mostly EMTs, plan to strike over a wage dispute with their employer.

AMR, a private, national contractor, says it is training 200 replacements to fill in, most of them from out of state. State and King County health officials say they can't approve out of state EMTs at this point, however.

Kristen Maki, spokesperson for the department of health, said "out of state EMS personnel is sometimes necessary in isolated, special circumstances, when use of our existing Washington state agencies and personnel isn't possible."

She said, however, that the county needs to ask for a waiver to grant that special circumstance, and the county doesn't plan to do so. Seattle & King County Public Health said this labor strike doesn't meet the threshold for emergency, out of state technicians.

AMR is responsible for hospital transports and responding to certain 911 calls in Seattle. If it stops providing that service it could violate its contract with the city, according to Mayor Jenny Durkan's office.

There are seven ambulance units housed at Seattle Fire stations in Seattle, which respond to the most critical 911 calls.

AMR said it doesn't plan to re-start salary negotiations, which would prevent the strike. Instead it's relying on back-up technicians, according to spokesperson Jason Sorrick.

"We will have all of personnel, all of our equipment ready to go," Sorrick said. "However, without a variance we would be prevented from responding to calls."

Sorrick said if the state doesn't recognize the fill-in technicians, "it's playing politics" and favoring unionized workers.

Washington state health officials say they're monitoring the strike situation, but are not approving plans to use EMTs who aren't licensed in Washington.

Local emergency response officials say they're are working on a plan to make sure ambulance service is available during the strike. That could include deploying more fire department crews.

Sorrick says the company has offered raises, but the unionized EMTs say the offer is too low and that they're not making a livable wage. Teamsters Local 763 representative Liz Brown says the strike is still scheduled to begin December 21st at 12 p.m.