EMS discrimination suit certified as a class action

A federal judge has certified litigation brought by two dozen members of FDNY EMS and their unions as a class action discrimination suit covering all EMS workers, from EMTs to division commanders, employed by the department in the last five years. Judge Analisa Torres had already denied the city’s request to throw out the suit and last week once again sided with the EMS workers.

The suit, filed in December 2022, alleges that the city has engaged in discriminatory pay practices against members of FDNY EMS on the basis of race and sex. Prior to filing their suit, FDNY EMS workers had filed a discrimination complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2019. The federal EEOC found in 2021 that former and current EMS workers had been discriminated against and told the workers the following year that they had a legal basis to sue.

Workers filed the suit with support from District Council 37 Local 2507, which represents EMTs and paramedics, and Local 3621, the EMS officers union.

Vincent Variale, Local 3621’s president, said the suit certification as a class action was “monumental and historic.” 

“It’s another step towards EMS receiving justice for all these years,” he added.

Variale said that the two unions’ negotiations with the city for a new collective bargaining agreement has made little progress as the locals continue to demand raises that would put them on a course to parity with other first responders. Officials with the city’s Office of Labor Relations, Variale said, have proposed giving EMS workers raises adhering to the civilian pattern despite the fact that they’re uniformed employees.

In her March decision declining to throw out the case, Torres argued that failing to provide EMS workers with the higher, uniformed wage pattern “raises the specter of discrimination.” In the decision handed down last week, Torres wrote that EMS workers’ arguments “offer significant proof that the City has ’operated under a general policy of discrimination.’”

The evidence includes “statistical analyses showing that the EMS First Responders are more diverse by race and sex/gender than Fire First Responders and are paid significantly less; and expert analyses showing that EMS and Fire First Responders perform similar jobs and that no job-relevant rationale explains the difference in compensation.”

Torres also certified two subclasses, one for EMS workers who identify as women, and another for those who are  non-white. Last year, Torres oversaw a $29.2 million settlement between the city and the FDNY’s fire protection inspectors after the inspectors filed a class action lawsuit of their own.

“We are grateful to the Court for giving us the opportunity to correct the long overdue problem of pay inequity in the FDNY," Oren Barzilay, the president of Local 2507, said in a statement. "Despite being underpaid and undervalued, our brave EMT’s and paramedics protect the lives of New Yorkers every day. We look forward to the day when our members are extended the same treatment and recognition they deserve as uniform first responders.”

The FDNY deferred a comment request to the city’s Law Department 

“The City values all of its first responders and the critical services they perform,” a Law Department spokesperson said in a statement. “Class certification is a way to streamline the case and in no way speaks to the merits of these claims. The City is confident that it will ultimately prevail in this litigation.” 

dfreeman@thechiefleader.com