The New York Amsterdam News
By Karen Juanita Carrillo | May 29, 2025
In 1996, when New York City’s Emergency Medical Service (EMS) merged with the Fire Department of New York City (FDNY), it caused a lot of turmoil.
Neither organization truly wanted the merger.
EMS personnel had been part of the Health and Hospitals Corporation. They felt more closely aligned with the medical field, which had nothing to do with firefighting. Firefighters believed their role was solely to combat fires, not to engage in medical duties.
Combining medical and firefighting resources did help strengthen the city’s emergency response capabilities, though: EMS personnel gained improved training and updated equipment, while the FDNY was able to coordinate better and expand its services.
“They started off with a lot of tension and animosity,” Oren Barzilay, president of Local 2507, the union that represents the 4,500 members of the FDNY EMS, told the AmNews. “And as the years grew, the respect for each other got better. But to this day, because of the city’s lack of acknowledging EMTs and paramedics, there’s still a huge pay gap between the two professions, and it creates a lot of division, a lack of respect for the men and women of EMS.”
The merger was supposed to garner Local 2507 members better pay and benefits, but the average hourly pay for an EMS trainee in New York remains as low as $17.00 an hour. FDNY EMS employees have had uniform status since 2001, which should mean increased bargaining benefits for Local 2507 members, but the union contends the city continues to negotiate wages based on a bargaining system that grants 16% increases for all city employees regardless of base pay. With starting salaries for EMS employees in the $40,000 range, this keeps their wages low.
Local 2507 has an ongoing federal lawsuit against New York City for discriminatory pay practices in EMS. In its class action lawsuit, Local 2507 claims “the City pays EMS First Responders substantially lower salaries than it does Fire First Responders. Fire First Responders also ‘receive more generous overtime, pension, disability, medical, dental, line of duty death, and educational benefits.’