By Bob Hennelly

New York City Mayor Eric Adams this week reiterated his support for full pay parity between the FDNY EMS workforce, which is mostly composed of women and people of color — and the firefighting side of the department, which is mostly white males.

The anounceement came after Hizzoner became the first New York City mayor to attend the annual Women’s Pay Equity rally on the steps of City Hall on March 11. CWA Local 1180, which represents several thousand administrative managers across every city agency, sponsored the event. 

“My goal is to rectify and correct it,” Mayor Adams said in response to a Work-Bites query about pay parity. “It’s only been two years and two months — I know it’s hard for people to believe it — but it’s only been two years and two months.”

The mayor originally declared, “For years, our EMTs, paramedics & fire inspectors have been shamefully denied pay parity—that comes to an end when I become Mayor,” in a Tweet sent out on June 4, 2021.

Last summer, Work-Bites reported on the growing frustration and desperation overworked and underpaid paramedics and EMTs are experiencing waiting for Mayor Adams to make good on his campaign promise.

“He has not come through on anything that he said that he would fix,” EMS veteran Jennifer Aguiluz told Work-Bites in July. “We’re now two years in — and there's been nothing.”

This week, Mayor Adams said the first half of his first term in office had been taken up dealing with COVID, the migrant crisis, crime control, and the city’s economic recovery.

“So, the goal is to look at all of these inequities and start peeling back these inequities as we finish this term, and once I am elected to the next term we will be able to get more [done],” he said. 

The mayor also volunteered an expansive analysis of what he asserted was a much wider pattern of racial pay disparity across all of the city’s law enforcement agencies with the NYPD consistently out ahead of agencies like Corrections and Probation, which are overwhelmingly made up of people of color. 

“You know, what I did in my analysis was [look at] every law enforcement uniform agency…outside of the police department are predominately people of color…go down the list, and throughout the years we have been more biased toward a good solid contract — benefits for the men and women of the NYPD and it just hasn’t cascaded to the other law enforcement agencies,” Mayor Adams told reporters.

When former Mayor Bill de Blasio was asked the same question in 2019, after expressing his  “deep, deep respect for our EMTs and everyone who works at EMS,” he went on to say, “I think the work is different. We are trying to make sure people are treated fairly and paid fairly, but I do think the work is different.”

New York State Attorney General Letitia James also attended this week’s City Hall rally and expressed her support for pay parity. "I spoke about these disparities with EMS at the church this past Thursday. It obviously continues to be an issue and I look forward to working on it,” she said. 

James also expressed support for the city’s Probation officers, who are also overwhelmingly women of color and are required to have a college degree and to carry a gun — but earn tens of thousands of dollars less that their NYPD peers, according to the United Probation Officers Association. 

PARITY LONG OVERDUE

Glenn Corbett,  an Assistant Professor of Fire Science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, believes the time for parity for the EMS workforce is long overdue.

“You are talking about the substantial risks involved for them when they are encountering people on the street in very bad conditions,” he said in a phone interview. “It’s one thing to be in a hospital setting with security guards all around, but it’s very different encountering people on the street in what can be very dynamic situations.”

For a generation now, the unions representing EMTs and EMS officers have been battling to achieve pay parity with firefighters and cops. While the City Council voted to grant them uniformed status, that had no impact on the salary structure for the job, although there was some progress in closing the gap during the de Blasio administration.

The FDNY’s EMS unions, which both endorsed Mayor Adams in 2021, remain cautiously optimistic pay parity is finally coming. 

“It is a step in the right direction that Mayor Adams is now acknowledging the need for parity for New York City's medical first responders,” said Oren Barzilay, president of DC 37 Local 2507. “Last year, FDNY EMTs and paramedics responded to over 1.6 million emergencies and despite protecting so many lives, they are stuck with poverty wages and poor working conditions. Parity is something the Mayor promised while a candidate for the office and we hope 2024 is the year it can be finalized."

“This is a welcomed statement from the Mayor as we go into contract negotiations,” Vinnie Variale, president of DC 37 Local 3621, said. “We look forward to working with his Office of Labor Relations and making parity a reality — not just a statement. To attain true parity we also need not only equal pay, but equal benefits and unlimited sick time like all the other uniformed emergency services.”

DC 37 Local 2507, which represents EMTs and paramedics, as well as fire inspectors, and EMS Officers Union FDNY Local 3621, have sued the City of New York over allegations of race and gender-based pay discrimination. Currently, there is a wide gap between the pay received by members of the FDNY EMS and their firefighting colleagues, who also enjoy unlimited sick time. Last week, the EMS unions lawsuit survived the City of New York’s attempt to have the case dismissed.

Every year, hundreds of EMS members leave to take what the FDNY describes as a “promotion” to the fire side of the department. Peer-reviewed medical research suggests that the more experienced EMTs are, the better the outcome tends to be for their patients.

A multi-year study by medical researchers at the University of Pennsylvania looked at ambulance runs in Mississippi from 1991 to 2005 and included 120,000 heart-related EMS runs. They concluded that “paramedic tenure and cumulative experience is associated with better EMS performance."

AG BOOED AT FDNY CEREMONY

Mayor Adams’ pledge to finally end FDNY EMS gender and race pay discrimination came several days after Trump supporters booed and jeered New York State Attorney General Letitia James at the FDNY’s  promotion ceremony in Brooklyn.

Last month, the FDNY canceled its Black History Month celebration and the premiere of a documentary the FDNY produced on the life of Robert O. Lowery, the FDNY’s first Black fire commissioner, who was promoted by Mayor John Lindsay in the 1970s.

According to the New York Times, the  Lowery family protested the FDNY’s failure to include the Vulcan Society, the FDNY’s Afro-American support group, in the development of the documentary that was paid for by the FDNY Foundation. “My father would not have been fire commissioner without the Vulcan Society,” Gertrude Erwin, Mr. Lowery’s daughter, told the newspaper.

“The promotion ceremony last Thursday was about the achievements of our members,” the FDNY said in a statement. “Their families and friends were in attendance. The FDNY is the gold standard for fire departments around the world. What we do matters, how we do it matters, and what we say matters.” 

The FDNY’s statement continued, “FDNY leadership is having ongoing conversations with our members about decorum during department events to ensure we are upholding the core values that make the FDNY the greatest fire department in the world.”

The FDNY denied there was any investigation into the members who were booing.

“I support an individual’s right to protest — I support the first amendment and I will defend all of the individuals who engage in the freedom of expression,” James said. The attorney general prosecuting Trump also said she doesn’t think “any of these individuals should be disciplined — this is really a teaching moment where individuals, a few individuals who engaged in that conduct, need to know about my history. They need to know I was one of the first City Council members to oppose the closing of fire houses, fought vigorously the cutting of fire marshals, and have supported [firefighters] pension sweeteners.”

Uniformed Firefighters Association President Andy Ansbro said the attorney general has been “consistently aligned with the needs of all New York City firefighters, despite the fact that she isn’t politically aligned with the personal politics of all NYC Firefighters.”

FDNY Deputy Chief Jim Brosi, president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association, said he agrees with James that “punishment is not the best way to move forward.”

“Promotional ceremonies are held for the families and friends of fire officers to acknowledge their accomplishments,” he added. “AG James was present to support those accomplishments and to honor her pastor. Throughout her career in city government she has been a tremendous supporter of the FDNY in regard to the safety and pension issues that protect our families.”

Additional reporting by Joe Maniscalco