The Seattle Fire Department has begun contingency planning in case critical private ambulance service is disrupted by a labor dispute.
The emergency medical technicians for American Medical Response are now voting on whether to accept the company's offer or authorize a strike. They are members of Teamsters Local 763.
A strike would potentially mean Seattle Medic One would have to spend much more time transporting patients to the emergency room, even when they are not critically ill.The EMTs who work on the AMR ambulances say they don't make a living wage, and they want that to change.
They handle 40,000 calls for help a year in the city of Seattle so the firefighters from Medic One can focus on just the most critical of life-threatening situations.
At a union rally in August, EMT Meagan Scherzinger told us she'd had to sell blood plasma to get by.