Pay Parity for FDNY EMS: Will Mamdani Deliver?

FDNY EMS Officers Union Local 3621 VP Anthony Almojera [center] and his fellow EMTs and paramedics are keeping hope alive that the pay parity EMS workers have spent decades fighting for will finally be achieved on New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s watch—but are they right?

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By Joe Maniscalco

Editor’s Note: Work-Bites recently had the opportunity to talk to Anthony Almojera, Vice-President of FDNY EMS Officers Union Local 3621, about the crisis facing New York City EMTs and paramedics. This is Part II of a two-part report. Part I is here.   

Just like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, FDNY EMS Officers Union Local 3621 Vice-President Anthony Almojera identifies as a democratic socialist, and has since the 90s, for about as long as the mayor has been alive. 

But does that mean he believes City EMTs and paramedics will finally achieve the pay parity with cops and firefighters that mayors going all the way back to Edward I. Koch and his administration have promised?

Almojera says he holds out hope that it does, but that FDNY EMS personnel just don’t know yet where they stand with the new mayor. 

“You can't fix healthcare on a national level as the mayor in New York, I get that. But you can fix emergency healthcare,” Almojera recently told Work-Bites.

Many observers will tell you that the crisis facing FDNY EMS personnel really isn’t that hard to fix. 

“New York City should bring FDNY EMS to full staffing strength, address compensation parity for EMTs and paramedics, and publicly report response time and scheduled-versus-actual ambulance coverage by borough and tour,” one Work-Bites reader recently commented. “Prior analysis indicates that full staffing and fair compensation would require roughly $340 million annually, or about 0.3% of the city budget.”

And while Almojera insists a big part of the problem remains the stubborn adherence successive mayoral administrations have shown to pattern bargaining when it comes to settling municipal contracts, another big issue has to be the woefully outdated perception the public has about what municipal EMTs and paramedics actually do.

One that looks like this: two guys dressed all in white who drive up, throw you onto a foldable stretcher, and whisk you to the hospital.

“There’s still that image in people’s heads,” Almojera said.  

That enduring perception of highly-trained EMTs and paramedics being little more than glorified ambulance drivers is a problem that persists nationwide, and one that documentarian filmmaker Bryony Gilbey addresses in the excellent “Honorable But Broken: EMS In Crisis.”

Close down a fire house, Almojera further observed, and people immediately think their house is going to spontaneously combust at any moment. Same thing with police—cut back on couple of cops and many think the minute they walk out their door somebody is going to bash them on the head. 

“Their garbage is missed for a day, and they’re immediately making phone calls, too,” Almojera said. 

Local 3621’s VP does not advocate shutting down any firehouses, cutting back on cops, or letting the garbage pile up on the streets—he just wonders why so many people walk around never thinking they’re ever gong to need urgent medical care in the same way they require those other city services.

New York City EMTs and paramedics respond to roughly 1.6 million emergency medical calls every year. The daily average across all five boroughs is approximately 4,400 calls per day. And the average time it takes for FDNY EMS to get to New Yorkers is on the rise—now averaging about 11 minutes and 21 seconds. 

That is especially significant for the public to realize considering your chance of surviving a heart attack falls roughly 7% to 10% for every minute emergency care is delayed. 

“We're the first people to arrive at a scene. We’re also the first ones to leave because we do what we have to do and then leave,” FDNY EMS veteran Jennifer Aguiluz told Work-Bites in 2023. “There is no glorification in that— and we’re not looking for that. But EMS here in New York City has been forgotten about…forever.”

Outdated public perceptions and fiscal penny-pinching alone cannot fully account for decades of institutionalized exploitation and marginalization, however. 

“The City Council and Fire Department's Achille's heel isn't pay parity, it's pay discrimination,” another Work-Bites reader recently commented. “FDNY has a long and extremely well documented record of discrimination against women and non-white applicants. The majority, by far, of [people of color] and women work in the Department's EMS division where they perform almost 90% of call volume with a fifth of the personnel for half the pay. Rather than beg City Hall to show mercy and pay EMS what it deserves, we should demand they defend a policy of blatant discrimination against women and [people of color].”

A 2018 EEOC [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] complaint alleging discrimination and bias in the FDNY EMS against women and people of color is still active and working its way through the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. 

“Imagine if there was a public education campaign about what EMS does,” Almojera continued. “If I was the mayor or somebody in power trying to rebuild the system—I would start with EMS and build up.” 

But is Mayor Mamdani listening?

Work-Bites reached out to the Mayor’s Office for a comment on this story, but has yet to get a response.