Get Up, Stand Up

September 22, 2019

A Gazette Editorial

Since at least* 1982, pay parity with their fellow municipal emergency responders – NYPD and FDNY – has been the Holy Grail for NYC EMTs and Paramedics. Now a tiny subdivision of FDNY, EMS crews answer over 80% of the Department’s 1.7 million annual calls, earn a third less in base pay, and do it with just a quarter of the personnel. Additionally, as a NY Times Editorial recently pointed out:

On Sept. 4, Local 2507 and Local 3621 of District Council 37, along with the E.M.S. Superior Officers Association, filed a complaint with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, charging that the disparity was also a matter of racial and gender discrimination. Their evidence: Nearly 78 percent of the department’s firefighters and officers are white, and nearly 99 percent of them are male. The F.D.N.Y.’s emergency medical services are far more diverse: About 41 percent are white, 28 percent Hispanic, 21 percent black and 5 percent Asian. More than one in four Emergency Medical Services workers are female.

Mayor De Blasio has promoted the idea that NYC is “America’s Fairest City.” Paying a diverse workforce that resembles the city they serve a fraction of an all-male, mostly white cohort of firefighters is textbook discrimination. It makes the Mayor’s “Fairest City” BS a cruel joke that harms not only thousands of hardworking EMS personnel and their families, but the patients that rely on them to be at the top of their game on every call, not bleary eyed from mandatory OT or a second job.

The time has come to do the right thing, Mayor De Blasio. Your campaign for the Presidential nomination of the Democratic Party was a bad joke and a waste of time and money. Here’s a chance to redeem your tattered reputation by doing what Mayors Koch, Dinkins, Giuliani, and Bloomberg all failed to do: the right thing. End this racist and sexist injustice and don’t waste taxpayers’ money defending it in court. Enact Pay Parity for EMS now, Mayor De Blasio.

Most people think,
Great god will come from the skies,
Take away everything
And make everybody feel high.
But if you know what life is worth,
You will look for yours on earth:
And now you see the light,
You stand up for your rights, jah!
Get up, stand up! (jah, jah!)
Stand up for your rights! (oh-hoo!)
Get up, stand up! (get up, stand up!)
Don’t give up the fight! (life is your right!)
Get up, stand up! (so we can’t give up the fight!)
Stand up for your rights! (lord, lord!)
Get up, stand up! (keep on struggling on!)
Don’t give up the fight! (yeah!)

~Bob Marley

*Editor’s Note: The writer served as a NYC Paramedic 1982-2007.