EMS Unions Ratify Contract With 17% Hike for 51 Months; Experiment With 12-Hour Tours

The members of the two unions representing Emergency Medical Service uniformed responders ratified a contract last week that provides 16.99 percent in wage increases over the course of the 51-month deal and a pilot program experimenting with 12-hour tours in one division.

PATRICK J. BAHNKEN: 'You always want more.'

Local 2507 of District Council 37, which represents Paramedics and Emergency Medical Technicians, and Local 3621, which represents EMS officers, agreed to 4-percent annual increases beginning in 2006 and continuing through 2009. The contract expires September 5, 2010.

Two-Tier Pay Scales

EMTs hired after April 2006 have a starting salary of $29,522 and a top pay of $42,376. Those hired before that date have a starting salary of $36,244 and a top pay of $44,520. The starting salary for Paramedics hired after April 2006 is $40,394 and for those hired before that date the starting pay is $43,708. Top pay for Paramedics hired after April 2006 will be $59,079 by next summer. A five-year Paramedic previously earned $50,501.

TOM EPPINGER: Deal partly addresses concerns.

Supervising EMS Specialists at Level 1 will see a new starting salary of $52,890 and a new maximum of $59,627. For officers at Level 2, those numbers are $54,699 for starting pay and $61,223 for maximum salary. Those numbers may be subject to further change.

Special assignment differentials will be available to Paramedics assigned to Rescue Medic Units and to officers assigned to HazTac. The city will increase by $100 per worker a year its contribution to the welfare fund retroactive to July 2006.

The contract also establishes a pilot program for one EMS division to have 12-hour tours. If successful, it could lead to establishing more 12-hour tours, allowing EMS responders to work fewer shifts in a month.

"This will enable us to back-fill a lot of these tours, a lot of these slots that are pure overtime slots, and enable us to reduce out-of-service times and sick leave," said Local 2507 President Patrick J. Bahnken in a Nov. 6 phone interview. "It's a much more hospitable work chart for our members as well."

Tried 10-1/2-Hour Tour in '90s

EMS had experimented with 10-1/2-hour shifts in the early 1990s when it was under the auspices of the Health and Hospitals Corporation. Lieut. Joan Hillgardner said that alternative shifts and wage increases would ease the burden of working overtime.

"It worked out very well," she recalled of the first pilot program. "EMS people do huge amounts of overtime because the wage is low."

Local 2507 members ratified the contract 1,703 to 138, and Local 3621 members ratified it 217 to 93. The unions stayed quiet about the tentative contract agreement until ratification.

Limited By Economy

Both unions have complained about low salaries leading to high attrition rates in EMS and poor recruitment numbers. Mr. Bahnken was lukewarm on the new wage increases, saying the city recognized that EMS responders needed higher salaries but that the economic situation made this harder.

"Obviously, you always want more," he said. "Given the economy and given what we need to do to better shore up this career track and retain people, I think this contract goes a great deal towards helping us realize those concerns."

Mr. Bahnken said that there were other aspects of the deal that made it attractive, including the establishment of the labor/management pension committee.

"We are anxious to get started meeting with the city's actuary on ways to enhance the pension system," he said.

Talks between the city and the two unions, which had been operating on the terms of a contract that had expired in June of 2006, had stalled in April, leading the locals to pursue arbitration until negotiations resumed later in the summer.

'City Understood the Problems'

"I was clear all along that, certainly, we would always prefer a negotiated settlement," Mr. Bahnken said. "The Fire Department and the city recognized the significant problems in retention and recruitment in EMS."

This is the first contract the two unions have negotiated since the Court of Appeals in June 2007 upheld laws granting uniformed status to EMS employees, entitling them to bargain on their own rather than being bound by a contract for primarily civilian workers.

Local 3621 President Tom Eppinger has been outspoken about the fact that his members are paid less compared to other uniformed services' supervisors and that this encouraged exceptional Paramedics to seek promotion to Firefighter or jobs outside the FDNY rather than to aspire to EMS leadership positions.

Mr. Eppinger said that under the new pact, "We received the same percent raises of the other uniformed forces [and] we received the same specialty assignment differential as Firefighters and Police Officers."

But, he noted, that there was more work to do for his union over the course of this contract. "We will be meeting back with the city to discuss two important issues: the restructuring of our salaries and productivity for additional compensation," he said.