NYC EMS Union Launches Campaign Highlighting Low Pay, High Risk
Queens Ledger
By MOHAMED FARGHALY
The union representing more than 4,000 emergency medical technicians, paramedics and fire inspectors in New York City has launched a public awareness campaign to highlight what it calls “neglect” from City Hall, low pay, and worsening emergency response times that threaten public safety.
FDNY EMS Local 2507 kicked off the #StandWithEMS campaign on October 6, urging New Yorkers to pressure city officials to address long-standing pay disparities and staffing shortages among the city’s medical first responders.
Despite handling 1,630,466 medical emergencies in 2024, a 15.4% increase since the start of the pandemic, EMTs in the city earn just $18.94 an hour — a rate that union leaders say leaves many unable to afford to live where they work.
“We are world-class emergency response medical professionals and the FDNY is the busiest emergency medical response agency in the world,” said Local 2507 Union President Oren Barzilay. “Yet our front-line medical first responders are paid less per hour than most New Yorkers pay to babysitters or dog walkers.”
Barzilay said the situation has pushed EMTs to the brink. “We are literally working for minimum wage,” he said. “They keep passing legislation to improve the minimum wage for the private sector, food service delivery drivers, people in the food industry — they’re all making above what my men and women are making, which is $18 an hour. And if you take away all the deductions after taxes, we’re left with $12 and change.”
The result, he said, is an attrition rate of about 70% within the first five years on the job. Many EMTs leave for higher-paying work elsewhere — including within the FDNY itself. “Just last Friday, 175 of my men and women resigned in one day to become firefighters, because they will make the same amount of money starting off,” Barzilay said.
The union says the consequences are already visible. According to the Mayor’s Management Report, emergency medical response times are up 1 minute and 47 seconds over the last four years. “People are literally dying because we don’t get there in time,” Barzilay said. He recounted stories shared at City Council hearings of New Yorkers who died waiting for ambulances that took 30 minutes or more to arrive. “This happens every day,” he said.
Barzilay described the situation as both a humanitarian and public safety crisis. “Our EMTs go through four months of training at the EMS Academy. Our paramedics go through nine months of rigorous medical training,” he said. “The training that we receive is how to bring somebody who has passed away back to life. We deal with people who are severely sick or injured, and we sustain their life until we get to the operating room.”