Kadlec nurses begin voting on hospital strike

Nurses at Kadlec Regional Medical Center began casting ballots Tuesday on whether to authorize a strike at the Richland hospital.

Washington State Nurses Association has been in contract negotiations for more than a year with the Providence-affiliated medical center.

No media was allowed inside the voting area at the Red Lion Hotel in Richland.

But in the hallway, Kadlec nurse Kayln Michels posed for a promotional photo by co-worker Adam Halvorsen after casting her ballot.

A final negotiating session between nurses and hospital officials ended Oct. 25 with the parties far apart, according to the nurses association.

Richland nurses’ colleagues at another Providence-owned hospital, Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike, the association announced late Friday night after two days of voting there.

Proposed benefit cuts and staffing levels remain points of disagreement for both Sacred Heart and Kadlec Regional Medical Center nurses.

The voting by about 915 nursers in Richland will take two days and end at 10 pm. on Oct. 30.

If nurses vote to authorize a strike, nursing union officials would still need to declare a strike and determine when it would start and possibly set an end date.

The union is legally required to provide 10-days notice before striking to allow the hospital to make arrangements for patient care, which could include bringing in out-of-town nurses as it did in the last Kadlec nursing strike in 1993.

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This story was originally published October 29, 2019 at 12:40 PM.