Brooklyn Paper
By Gabriele Holtermann | October 7, 2025
FDNY EMS Local 2507, which represents more than 4,000 emergency medical technicians, paramedics and fire inspectors in New York City, launched a new public awareness campaign on social media Oct. 6 with the hashtag #StandWithEMS.
The campaign follows the release of the Mayor’s Management Report, which showed an increase in emergency response times. It aims to draw attention to the pay disparity that has plagued the city’s emergency medical services for years and highlights the inequities FDNY EMTs face both on and off the job. The campaign calls on the public to take action by sharing on social media whether they will #StandWithEMS.
Union leaders say the pay gap has led to a 70% attrition rate within the first five years on the job — a figure they describe as unsustainable, especially as call volumes have risen in recent years. Union representatives expect that more than 1,500 members, or about 37% of the department’s workforce, will leave within the next 12 months.
FDNY EMS Local 2507 President Oren Barzilay noted that despite FDNY EMS being the busiest emergency medical response agency in the world, and with world-class professionals, frontline medical first responders are paid less per hour than babysitters or dog walkers in New York City.
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“Despite commitments this administration and the FDNY made over decades past, the members of EMS are not treated with the commensurate respect and wage equity as our city’s frontline first responder peers at police and fire,” Barzilay said, urging the city to invest as much in medical first responders as it does in police officers and firefighters.
“Every single day our members are surrounded by the harsh realities and dangers of New York, shoulder to shoulder at active crime scenes, fires and disasters with our peers at NYPD and Fire,” Barzilay said. “The city has continually failed to uphold commitments it has made to our workforce, and all we ask for is a wage commensurate with being on the front lines.”