EMS Competition 2008

Reasons Why the City does'nt care about Salaries

1. The money that it has allocated to salaries and other personnel costs, simply sits with the city. That is more money in their pockets..

2. Since there is no possibility of a strike, because of things like the Taylor Law, the city goes on with business as usual, and employees have to suffer without pay increases, as cost of living goes through the roof.

3. The city makes money on the ambulance service, every ambulance transport makes money for the city, whether the transport is necessary or not.

-Part of the bill is paid for by the patient, who often is not told that this will happen

-The rest of the bill is sent to insurance companies, who often will pay but not always the whole bill. The patient is stuck with the rest of the bill and the co-pay.

City Ambulances are funded through tax-payers dollars, yet the Fire Department is allowed to bill for ambulance service, which is in essence double billing...

So yearly salary increases are an impossibility, so is renewing of current contracts. We are currently 2 years without a contract, and even though we may eventually receive a raise, that raise is worth nothing, by todays standard.

A 4% raise that goes back, 2yrs, is not currently worth 4%, it is worth much less, so perhaps there does need to be drastic changes to how we negotiate.

Private companies are allowed to strike, even though, it affects public safety. Yet we are not.. Con-Edison striking is a public safety issue. So is Verizon, but they can strike and therefore, they can force negotiations...