EMS class-action discrimination suit moves forward

Members of the FDNY’s emergency medical services bureau and their unions have been given the green light to pursue a class-action lawsuit against New York City and the fire department over claims of discriminatory employment practices, unequal treatment and both race and gender-based bias. 

In a decision released on Monday, U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres rejected the city’s arguments that the claim should be dismissed because EMS workers’ and firefighters’ tasks and responsibilities are dissimilar. Torres also found that contrary to the city’s arguments, the workers submitted their complaint in a timely manner and met the bar to pursue a class-action claim. 

The suit by members of Local 2507, which represents uniformed EMTs, paramedics and fire inspectors, alleges that the city and the FDNY have discriminated against EMS first responders by not paying them according to their responsibilities relative to those of firefighters, who are paid significantly better. 

“It may well be that distinctions between EMS and Fire First Responders will undermine Plaintiffs’ case at a later stage of the litigation. But given the nuances and complexities inherent in a putative class-wide employment discrimination suit, for the Court to accept the City’s arguments at this early juncture would amount to ‘improper fact-finding at the pleading stage,’ ” Torres, citing a federal 2021 discrimination suit, wrote in allowing the case to move forward.

‘Pronounced gap in wages’

The workers first filed a discrimination complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2019 and that body ruled in late 2021 that the city had in fact discriminated against current and former members of FDNY EMS based on sex and race. 

“Any difference in duties between the EMS First Responders and Firefighters fails to explain the pronounced gap in wages,” the commission's 2021 determination read. 

The city has “failed to adjust the pay scales of EMS First Responders to keep pace with the changes to their duties since the City merged EMS with the Fire Department in 1996,” the EEOC finding continued. 

The Department of Justice informed the workers in November 2022 they had a right to sue. The next month, 25 members of FDNY EMS and their unions sued the city and the FDNY, alleging that the diverse employees of FDNY EMS have largely the same job responsibilities as FDNY firefighters, who are paid far more and are far more likely to be white and male than the department's EMTs, paramedics and EMS officers.  

At the time the suit was filed, Oren Barzilay, the president of District Council 37 Local 2507, said the suit was a “historic moment for New York City’s Emergency Medical Servicemembers.”  

Barzilay declined to comment on Monday’s decision, citing the ongoing nature of the litigation. Leadership of the other EMS union, DC 37 Local 3621, declined to comment for the same reason. 

‘A high level of disrespect’ 

The FDNY deferred to the city’s Law Department for comment on the case.   

“While firefighters and EMS personnel perform essential and vital service for our city, their job duties are different,” a spokesperson for the Law Department said. “These claims are not supported by the facts. We will engage on these points more as we proceed in the case.”  

City Hall did not immediately comment on the judge’s decision to allow the case to move forward.  

Regina Wilson, president of the Vulcan Society, the fraternal organization of Black firefighters, said that “there is definitely pay discrimination going on and it definitely affects not only [Black people] and women but many other people in EMS."  

"It is an uncomfortable, ridiculous situation they're in,” she added. "It shows the department has a high level of disrespect for their workers and shows the unfit leadership we have within the fire department of New York.” 

One of the central issues noted by the EEOC, highlighted in Monday’s decision, is that members of FDNY EMS, despite being legally recognized as a uniform force, receive contractual wage increases at the same rate of civilian workers, not the higher, uniformed rate firefighters and police receive.  

“However, the City’s alleged refusal to pay EMS First Responders the uniformed rate — despite recognizing them as uniformed employees and paying the uniformed rate to Fire First Responders — raises the specter of discrimination,” Torres, the U.S. District judge, wrote in her decision. 

Leadership of the EMS unions have insisted their members should be recognized as uniform employees by the city’s labor negotiators and consequently receive better raises and health and pension benefits. 

The suit’s claims reflect those made by FDNY fire protection inspectors represented by Local 2507 in a class-action complaint filed in 2020. The fire protection inspectors, 70 percent of whom are people of color, argued that the difference in salaries between them and inspectors in the Department of Buildings, a majority of them white, amounted to racial discrimination. 

The inspectors and the city reached a $29.2 million settlement last year after Torres found merit to the inspector’s claims.  

Other members of FDNY EMS have also taken legal action against the city. Last year, more than 2,500 current and former FDNY emergency medical technicians secured a $18 million payout after an appeals court upheld a jury decision that found the city failed to pay the EMTs for work before and after their shifts began, a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.  

And a few months before that decision came down, four paramedics and EMT settled a lawsuit with the city that secured each of the workers $29,999 in damages after they were punished by the FDNY for speaking to media outlets in the early days of the pandemic.  

dfreeman@thechiefleader.com

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