EMS is in Crisis—Give NYC Council Members a Pay Raise!?!
FDNY EMS paramedics and EMTs cannot make ends meet—but New York City Council Members earning more than $148,000 a year want to give themselves a raise.
By Joe Maniscalco
The worst has happened and you or a neighbor, or loved one needs emergency medical attention to survive. Thankfully, you’re a New Yorker and living in the richest city in the U.S. means emergency medical aid will be rushed to your doorstep in no time, and you’ll make it through okay.
Scratch that.
Odds are you, your neighbor, or loved one won’t actually make it out alive—especially in cardiac arrest cases—because the richest city in the country still refuses to pay Emergency Medical Services what it needs to save lives.
New York City, in fact, is probably a lot closer to giving City Council Members a more than $24,000 raise, than it is paying Emergency Medical Services workers a living wage.
That’s right, while city paramedics and EMTs earning less than $60,000 a year after five years on the job watch outgoing Mayor Eric Adams exit office without delivering the pay parity he vowed to deliver, members of the New York City Council wanna give themselves—and the mayor, and the comptroller, and borough presidents—a hefty pay hike.
Work-Bites has confirmed that City Council Member Natasha Williams [D-27th District] will introduce legislation on Tuesday formally proposing the pay raises—presumedly with a straight face.
Never mind, of course, that EMS is in crisis with only about 20 percent of New Yorkers suffering a cardiac arrest surviving the ordeal—and overall emergency response times now averaging around 12 minutes. Compound that with the further sobering reality that irreversible brain damage can occur just four to six minutes of being oxygen deprived.
But New York City Council members already earning more than $145,000 a year and largely concerning themselves with renaming street corners and power-washing the sidewalks say they need more money.
“We’ve been treated as an appendage not a core public health service,” Anthony Almojera, Lt. Paramedic and VP of Local 3621, FDNY EMS officers union, told a joint City Council hearing on Nov. 13. “That neglect doesn’t just hurt the EMTs and paramedics, it hurts the very citizens we serve. EMTs and paramedics are leaving faster than we can replace them— losing 10 to 15 people per week as per the department’s figures. The pay gap between EMS and Fire still exceeds 50 percent despite equal sacrifice and danger.”
Almojera was speaking at hearing to consider Intro. 521—a new proposal from City Council Member Justin Brannan [D-47th District] seeking to transform EMS into its own standalone agency. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani pushed the merger between EMS and the FDNY back in 1996 as a way of addressing the alarming response times happening back then. It hasn’t worked.
Proponents of the new bill hope splitting EMS from the FDNY will finally put EMT and paramedic salaries on par with New York City’s other uniformed services that Almojera talked about.
“There's no second chance when it comes to EMS,” Oren Barzilay, president of FDNY EMS Local 2507 told Work-Bites this week. “If we get there 12 minutes on a cardiac arrest—at this point you better take him to the morgue or to a funeral home. As we know, severe adverse reactions happen to you within four to six minutes.”
“Just today, we had to find somebody funds to help pay her rent because she got an eviction notice. Our average EMTs are making $2,000 a month. The individual that we helped today, her rent is $2200—not including utilities and food.”
Perhaps as equally shocking as the 12-minute response times and the paltry 20-percent survivability rate among heat attack victims is the astonishing reality that there are active EMS workers on the job right now earning around $2,000 a month who can't afford to keep a roof over their heads.
“Nobody can afford to live on their own,” Barzilay added. “They either have to have a roommate, or are part of a couple that is sharing a space. Just today, we had to find somebody funds to help pay her rent because she got an eviction notice. Our average EMTs are making $2,000 a month. The individual that we helped today, her rent is $2200—not including utilities and food.”
Taysha Soto celebrated her one year anniversary as an FDNY EMT in October, but the mother of two says she’s just not making it despite routinely working between 8 and 16 hours a day serving the City of New York.
“I came into this department because I wanted a better life for myself and my children,” Soto told WBAI’s Labor and Healthcare Confidential host Marianne Pizzitola on Monday. “It’s not adding up. The pay is not adding up. Sometimes, I feel like I made the wrong choice by coming into this department.”
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has proposed a $30 an hour minimum wage for New Yorkers by 2030. EMS workers new to the job and earning just $18.90 an hour can’t wait for 2030, however. And neither can the New Yorkers relying on them in an emergency.
Barzilay is still holding out some hope that outgoing Mayor Eric Adams will come through on the pay parity pledge he made before coming into office.
A spokesperson for City Hall told Work-Bites this week that EMS workers have made countless sacrifices to keep New Yorkers safe—and “New York City owes them a debt of gratitude.”
“This job is difficult, and these brave men and women deserve our utmost respect and resources to do their critical jobs,” the spokesperson added. “As we move towards the end of our term, the Adams administration will continue our proven track record of reaching fair labor agreements with our represented employees, and we remain in negotiation with the EMS union.”
FDNY Fire Commissioner Robert Tucker tenured his resignation immediately after Mayor-elect Mamdani won the Nov. 4 election and will be following the current mayor out the door in January.
“What my members get paid is, unfortunately, not our responsibility,” the former corporate CEO told the joint City Council hearing considering Intro. 521 a couple of weeks ago.
Maybe the new Fire Commissioner Mayor-elect Mamdani appoints will have a different attitude, maybe he won’t.
“We have homeless people working for the FDNY EMS,” Barzilay emphasizes. “That should not be acceptable in any sense. Costco…WalMart…they all advertise a starting salary of $20-plus dollars an hour to sit at a register. You can babysit for more than what we are making—you can be a dog walker in New York City making more than we're making.”
And the emergency calls pouring into EMS on the daily will just keep coming.
The New York City Council won’t vote on Council Member Williams’ pay hike proposal until after the New Year.
Listen to the entire Labor and Healthcare Confidential interview with Taysha Soto and Oren Barzilay below: