The Chief
‘City treats our members like second-class citizens’: Barzilay
BY DUNCAN FREEMAN | March 18, 2025
Don’t join the Bravest.
That’s the message to New Yorkers from the president of the union representing FDNY EMTs and paramedics, because, he says, the city treats his members like “second class citizens.”
On the fifth anniversary of the Covid pandemic’s initial sweep into the city, Oren Barzilay, the president of Local 2507 of District Council 37, is once again sounding the alarm about what he characterizes as the crisis facing his members.
“When the City of New York treats our members like second class citizens within the FDNY, they are basically saying — Do not work at FDNY EMS unless you expect a life of being attacked, stabbed, and forced to live in a homeless shelter,” Barzilay said in a statement last week. “The City cannot in good faith tell current FDNY EMS members to remain employed with the agency or even encourage recruits to join, given its complete disinvestment and turning its back on our front-line medical professionals.”
Members of FDNY EMS responded to a record 1,630,446 emergency calls in 2024, according to the union, more than 15 percent above the number of calls the service handled at the height of the pandemic in 2020. Ambulance response times have increased each of the last three years as well and Barzilay expects the call volume to surpass 1.7 million in 2025 if January and February trends continue through the year.
“With continuously spiking levels of medical emergencies, fewer crews on the street, longer response times, absolutely horrific work conditions and wages below what app-based delivery workers get paid, New York City’s FDNY-led EMS system is itself on life support,” the union leader said.
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