As the city slips into the dog days of summer, up on the 15th floor of an unremarkable Cortlandt Street office building, the Mayor’s Office of Labor Relations (OLR) is busy negotiating with unions representing New York City’s EMS workers.
Nearly 5,000 EMTs, Paramedics, and Officers have been working without a contract for two years. Rank-and-file EMS workers – most of whom are women and people of color – make considerably less than their NYPD and FDNY siblings because the city still refuses to recognize EMS as a uniformed emergency service.
In many ways this issue is simple: every day, paramedics and EMTs encounter situations most of us consider unthinkable. Day in and day out, they confront dangerous and traumatic circumstances in the name of helping other people. For many, a medical emergency can spur one of the worst days of one’s life. Paramedics and EMTs are very often the first people making sure the worst days of our lives don’t become the last days of our lives.
And while this is just daily reality in EMS, extraordinary times only magnify the role of paramedics and EMTs. Time and time again, tragedies have laid bare how necessary they are, and how much they are willing to sacrifice.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, before we even understood the scale of that tragic day’s events, EMS workers risked their safety and their health to save others and minimize loss of life. Many paid for it with their lives, or with lasting trauma, or with debilitating and fatal 9/11-related illnesses.
In the worst days of the COVID-19 pandemic, these heroes have braved unimaginable conditions and put themselves in harm’s way daily, risking their own health and the health of their families to help those stricken with the virus and save lives. The city repeatedly hit record high volumes of emergency calls, and paramedics and EMTs worked themselves past the point of exhaustion, trying to keep up with the ever-mounting toll. In the end, EMS workers were 15 times more likely to be infected during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the general public.
Our paramedics and EMTs deserve more than applause. They deserve equal recognition and real pay parity that acknowledges the depth of their sacrifice, and their contributions to New York. It’s time to get them what they’re owed.
In the 2021 mayoral elections, Eric Adams vowed to make pay parity for EMS workers a reality when he got elected. Now, via ongoing negotiations through his OLR, Mayor Adams has an opportunity to deliver on that promise.
The fight for pay parity has been a long road, and I’ve been proud to stand with EMS as a crucial and equal contingent of New York City first responders since day one. We’ve come a long way in the past several years, but we have yet to take the final steps towards the moral imperative of equal treatment, equal dignity, and equal pay. With a new contract hanging in the balance, now is the time to recognize that EMS workers have never been less-than and have always been among our city’s greatest heroes.
When a New Yorker in distress dials 911, the operator asks: “Do you need police, fire, or medical?” all within the same breath. Yet when payday comes, EMS workers are treated very differently than their NYPD and FDNY counterparts.
It has gone on for too long. There should be no second-class first responders in the City of New York. It’s time for the Mayor’s Office of Labor Relations to make it right.
