November 6, 2019
FLSA – October 24, 2019 the jury returned a verdict in the FLSA lawsuit filed on behalf of 2519 of our hard working members. The jury unanimously found that the City willfully violated the plaintiff EMT and Paramedics’ FLSA rights. The amount of damages owed will be decided at a later date. This case has been hard fought from the beginning, but justice was served today.
Local 2507 EMTs & Paramedics victory decision has national implications on other workers who’s FLSA rights are violated.
We’re proud to have led the way on this crucial pay issue.
Contract – October 29 was our initial internal meeting with our council.
We got some work ahead of us and I assure you we will keep you informed on our progress.
FPI – Fire Prevention week – for the first time in our union we aired radio commercials recognizing and thanking our inspectors.
Our union received calls from other municipalities thanking our fire inspectors after hearing our ads.
Their work keeps our city safe.
With that being said, we are thankful for our inspectors recent find of a site in queens that had over 4k illegal gas tanks stored. A disaster prevented by our inspectors.
FPI – wage equality litigation – we are currently working with another firm on bringing this case forward. While in its early stages, we assure you that we’re moving forward.
Winston Financial – for the past year the local has been working on getting additional benefits for our members, dental, vision, life insurance, short term disability.
We have partnerships with Winston Financial, we brought them our members needs, we compared our current rates with our competitors (aflac), we demanded a better leaner policy and process to get our members claims approved.
With that being said, Met life has accepted our demands, they slightly lowered our premiums compared to our competitors (aflac) and will work with us on funding an additional benefit such as dental possibly as low as $2 a check.
We will release information in the coming days on how to obtain or switch from your provider to the new met life insurance.
Peer support – As we know, EMS may seem as an easy job, the reality is its not.
Routine jobs such as assaults, overdose, child or elder abuse, violence and death that we are exposed to on a daily basis can mentally lead to many problems such as PTSD, substance abuse, suicide, depression and other.
On April 23, 2019 we have visited a site called valley recovery, they specialize with the above mentioned conditions. The facility exceeded our expectations.
We already had members go thru the program and they couldn’t thank us enough for connecting them with the organization.
Although csu is a resource for our members, we believe more needs to be done.
November 11 thru 14, 2019, 7 of our members will be trained on establishing our own union peer support system.
This training will also guide us on training others. We hope that more members will be willing to join us once its established.
Rain gear – the local and the dept has finally found an appropriate gear for our members. We hope to see this pilot go out in the field in the coming weeks.
AWS – We have made some progress with the dept. Our next meeting with OLR is sometime towards the end of the month for final approval.
There will be some changes and some additions.
FPI – Boots – we’re setting up a labor management to discuss this ongoing issue.
Any member having medical issues with the boots should notify the delegates or our office.
Light duty overtime – We have been working with management to change their position.
The policy change is in its final draft, once released members on light duty will be allowed to work overtime at the Capt discretion.
This is our last general membership for the year.
We want to thank you all for your hard work, dedication and commitment to the people’s lives we save each and everyday.
You make a difference.
Happy holiday season.
Stay safe and look out for each other.
—
Oren Barzilay
President
FDNY EMS Local 2507