Razzle Dazzle
EMS Victory Not a Solution

By RICHARD STEIER

In discussing the impact of last week's Court of Appeals ruling upholding uniformed status for Emergency Medical Service workers, the verb used by Pat Bahnken was revealing.

"I think this will enable us to address some significant problems that we're facing," the president of EMS Local 2507 of District Council 37 said.

"Address," as opposed to "solve."

It's an important distinction, because even though the ruling made the Bloomberg administration a three-time loser in the court system on this issue, it does not guarantee improved compensation for the members of Local 2507 and EMS Officers Local 3621.

Leverage the Key Gain

It affords Mr. Bahnken and his Local 3621 counterpart, Tom Eppinger, the opportunity to argue that their members should receive pay and benefits approaching, if not matching, what is already granted to other uniformed workers ranging from cops and firefighters to correction and sanitation employees.

It does not, however, confer upon them improved benefits, or even entitle them to receive what the Bloomberg administration likes to refer to as the "uniformed pattern" in the area of pay raises under future contracts.

LONG ROAD AHEAD: Despite the Court of Appeals ruling affirming the law granting Emergency Medical Service workers uniformed status, EMS Local 2507 President Pat Bahnken knows he'll have a difficult time gaining equal footing with other unions that have had bargaining relationships cemented over four decades or more. 'We did come to the party somewhat late,' he said, 'but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be treated as an equal partner.'

Uniformed status merely creates the opportunity to make the argument that Emergency Medical Technicians, Paramedics and their supervisors deserve treatment more in line with other uniformed workers, and to negotiate on matters like annual leave and sick leave that were previously the sole province of DC 37.

But as one veteran government official noted, "The city could say that you could stand on your head but your job hasn't changed - you're still taking patients into the back of your ambulance. The real question is whether an arbitrator will see it that way."

Mr. Bahnken is well aware of that dynamic. Locals 2507 and 3621 last spring negotiated four-year contracts that, while independent of DC 37, contained the same basic pay raises for the corresponding periods. They have yet to agree to deals replacing the agreements that expired last June, even though DC 37 negotiated an additional 6-percent increase for a 20-month period last July.

The Local 2507 leader declined to spell out what he is looking for - talks with Labor Relations Commissioner Jim Hanley are set to resume June 25 - but he figures to be pursuing terms that at least match the 8-percent in raises over 24 months that were negotiated by Uniformed Firefighters Association President Steve Cassidy back in March.

Asked what might happen if Mr. Hanley balked at applying that "uniformed pattern" to his membership, Mr. Bahnken said, "Certainly the union believes in the negotiations process rather than arbitration. But we are not going to go through what we went through last time," when his rank and file worked for nearly four years under an expired pact.

Mr. Hanley tried to minimize the impact of the Court of Appeals ruling, suggesting that it merely required an extra set of negotiations by upholding the EMS unions' right to their own bargaining certificates and freeing them of confinement to whatever DC 37 negotiated for its entire membership.

'Then Why Fight It So Hard?'

Mr. Bahnken responded, "If it had been no big deal, then why did he fight it for the last six years?"

There are two primary reasons for the city's pressing on with a case that it began when Rudy Giuliani was still Mayor, even after rulings at the State Supreme Court and Appellate Division levels made it pretty clear it wouldn't prevail in its appeal to the state's highest court.

One involves the basic uncertainty about what an arbitrator might do in addressing the pay gap between EMS workers and other uniformed employees. There is a difference of roughly $22,000 between the maximum salary for Firefighters and EMTs dating back to last July, before the recent UFA deal took effect. It's a subjective call as to how much of that gap is the result of a difference in duties between the two jobs, and how much stems from the more-demanding physical and medical tests Firefighter candidates are subjected to. Another major element in the mix is that until 1995, when EMS was absorbed by the FDNY, it was part of the Health and Hospitals Corporation, and so its staff was viewed as medical personnel rather than uniformed employees.

Complicating matters further is, how much does the wage discrepancy owe to EMS workers having gotten to the party late, after pay relationships among the other uniformed forces were established during the 1960s and maintained ever since?

That leaves an awful lot for an arbitration panel to think about in determining whether maximum salary for EMTs should move significantly closer to that of Firefighters. As of last year it was about 65 percent of what senior Firefighters make, compared to 90 percent for veteran Sanitation Workers. How much should the gap be narrowed, and how quickly?

The possibility that arbitrators won't be inclined to close the gap also exists. Detective Investigators who are employed by the five District Attorneys have been unable to use uniformed status to gain equal treatment with cops through arbitration in the past, and are trying to do so again.

City Fears Ripple Effect

The other concern for the city is the ripple effect the Court of Appeals ruling could have. The Bloomberg administration, besides contesting the City Council's right to grant uniformed status to EMS workers and supervisors under Local Laws 18 and 19 of 2001, has challenged separate legislation that extended that status to a number of other groups, ranging from School Safety Agents and Park Rangers to security personnel in the Health and Hospitals Corporation and Human Resources Administration.

That means that increasing compensation for EMS workers opens the door for the unions representing those other groups to argue for equal treatment. And city officials are sure to emphasize that prospect to rebut EMS union claims that not only are ambulance personnel underpaid in comparison with other city emergency workers, they lag behind EMTs and Paramedics in other cities.

Mr. Bahnken argued, however, that the unusually high attrition rate among EMS workers is testament to the impact that the relatively low salaries for the jobs - $41,162 at maximum for EMTs, $50,996 for Paramedics - have on retaining employees. Citing numbers he said the union was given by Mr. Hanley, he noted the attrition rate among EMTs and Paramedics is nearly 10 percent even for those with 15 or more years on the job - a longevity that normally would spur workers to hang around long enough to qualify for a full pension after 25 years' service. (That, too, is inferior to Firefighters, who are entitled to full pensions after 20 years.)

Among less-senior employees, Mr. Bahnken said, the turnover rates are even higher: 11.88 percent for EMS staff with five-to-nine years on the job, and 16.92 percent for those with four years or less.

FDNY Confirms Problem

The FDNY's chief spokesman, Frank Gribbon, acknowledged that for EMS, "Attrition has always been an issue, and getting Paramedics has always been an issue. It's a higher [turnover] rate than for firefighters, certainly."

This was why Mr. Bahnken questioned whether the court ruling should be what spurs Mr. Hanley to upgrade compensation for his members beyond the existing DC 37 pattern. "I think the problems at EMS should be what's putting the pressure on him," the Local 2507 leader said.

"When the rubber hits the road," he continued, "it comes down to, [are] Mr. Hanley and the Fire Department going to continue to treat EMS like a pre-employment screening position?" He was referring to the fact that many EMTs leave the job because they are hired for better-paying uniformed positions. "We need people who are dedicated to EMS, not just hanging around until the better civil service call comes."

Mr. Bahnken credited union lobbyist Bob Ungar with having produced several legislative breakthroughs in recent years that gave EMS workers in all ranks pension benefits on the same level as cops and firefighters for line-of-duty disabilities, heart ailments, and World Trade Center-related illnesses. The union is currently pushing for equalized line-of-duty health benefits for its members who become disabled.

Sick Leave Pros and Cons

They are not, however, entitled to unlimited sick leave as cops and firefighters are. Union leaders in the past have argued that the high rate of sick leave in EMS is partly a consequence of low morale. Getting unlimited sick leave would end the process under which EMS workers who exhaust sick leave days can have vacation days deducted for excessive absences. But it would also discontinue the practice under which they can cash in unused sick leave when they retire, and the right to unlimited leave would subject them to home visits by Fire Department personnel as a safeguard against malingering.

The EMS unions are also pursuing an improper practice case against the FDNY's efforts to implement random drug-testing. Since such a policy is already in place for firefighters, it would be tough to argue for parity or something like it on salary while maintaining that EMS employees should not be treated equally when it comes to drug tests.

Despite Mr. Ungar's successes in Albany, it's questionable whether uniformed status will pave the way for enactment of a law giving EMS workers the right to retire after 20 years with a full pension. Even if the Legislature were inclined to grant such a break, the opposition of the Bloomberg administration - which again would fear the ripple effect regarding other employees who got the uniformed status designation from the Council - figures to be enough to persuade Governor Spitzer to veto such a bill.

Mr. Bahnken makes a compelling argument when he states, "When you look at what my people do and compare how they're compensated to cops, firefighters and sanitation workers, it is no wonder that we can't keep people on the job."

City Blunts PBA's Claim

By the same token, however, Patrolmen's Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch can make a strong case that his members are vastly underpaid compared with Police Officers in other jurisdictions, and that the disparity is the primary reason for the high attrition rate in the NYPD. Past and present mayoral administrations have frustrated that union's aspirations in arbitration by citing the longtime bargaining relationships that exist with other uniformed unions, and the potentially calamitous financial impact if those links were broken.

Mr. Bahnken at least has the advantage of being able to argue that he's not looking for more than other uniformed workers; just to be treated as an equal partner. If the city were short of Sanitation Workers, he said, it might mean delays in garbage collection, but "when problems in the Emergency Medical Service get worse, people die.

"To say that it would be too costly to take a hard look at the way these people are being compensated and pay them fairly doesn't add up," he contended. "My guys bring in $140 million a year" in patient-related billings even after employee costs are factored in. "We're the best deal in town."

At least they have been, until the court ruling gave the two EMS unions the leverage to demand financial treatment befitting a uniformed service. But where the PBA finds itself hamstrung by bargaining precedent, the EMS unions figure to need arbitrators willing to set a precedent to begin what is likely to be a slow, incremental climb toward that goal.