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AFSCME Council 2 asks IAFF Local 29 president to withdraw statements about Spokane Regional Emergency Communications workers’ qualifications

 

Spokane, WA – IAFF Local 29 President Michael Walker recently made disparaging remarks about the qualifications of Spokane Regional Emergency Communications (SREC) dispatchers in Locals 1553-EC and 1553-ES in news articles in The Spokesman Review and KHQ. Walker’s concerns about the qualifications of Council 2-represented workers at SREC, following their position’s movement to SREC in 2022, are unfounded, and the anecdote he shared with The Spokesman Review earlier this week was misleading.

Council 2 asks Walker to withdraw his statements and wants to make it abundantly clear that SREC dispatchers in bargaining units 1553-EC and 1553-ES are highly qualified for their positions, exceeding statewide standards for their profession.

• SREC currently trains their employees in CPR and EMD. EMD training consists of medical triage support, response allocation, and technical skills, like crisis communications.
• Under state law, fire and EMS dispatchers are not required to possess an EMT certification.
• SREC earned designation as an Accredited Center of Excellence (ACE) in Emergency Medical Dispatch from the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch in 2025. This is one of the highest standards in the profession, and there are only four organizations with this designation in Washington State.
• SREC takes an average of 60 seconds from the start of the call to the first compressions for CPR. The industry standard is 120 seconds.
• SREC employees completed 25,598 training hours in 2025.

In addition, nine employees who previously worked under Local 29’s jurisdiction at the city of Spokane before 2022 currently work at SREC in various positions. This means some of the workers Walker has criticized for their current quality of service were the very same workers previously delivering the service to the City of Spokane under Local 29’s jurisdiction.

Walker also shared an anecdote about recently being dispatched to a scene where someone had “fallen” only to realize upon arrival at the scene that the individual had been stabbed, attributing the lack of newly discovered information to the skills of the dispatcher. Dispatchers do what they can with the information given to them by callers. SREC released a statement about this call, confirming the caller insisted they had fallen; the dispatcher specifically asked if violence was involved, and relayed the patient’s denial.

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Council 2 staff are available for interviews if there are further questions. Please contact Rowan Herbst Minino at rowanh@council2.com to schedule.

The Washington State Council of County and City Employees, AFSCME Council 2, represents more than 16,000 employees who provide services to the citizens of Washington state.