EMS Unions Support Proposed Office of Diversity and Inclusion

Two New York City unions representing more than 4,700 Emergency Medical Service professionals issued the following statement today on a New York City Council proposal to create an Office of Diversity and Inclusion within the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS). The Council also is moving to require DCAS to study and report on diversity within city agencies.

“These are much welcomed and long overdue measures that, hopefully, will take the City to task by exposing a longstanding practice of shortchanging valued members of the City’s workforce. For far too long, the mayoral administration has withheld public records from public scrutiny, which we maintain would clearly display a pattern of bias and discrimination with the FDNY,” said Oren Barzilay, President of Local 2507, and Vincent Variale, President of Local 3621.

The two unions currently are in New York State Supreme Court demanding that City Hall turn over records detailing salary information on City employees hired in certain titles since January 2009. The Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS), who is responsible for maintaining this data, has stonewalled and denied repeated Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests since early 2017, prompting Locals 2507 and 3621 to seek legal redress.

We support the creation of an Office of Diversity and Inclusion that is empowered to report annually on racial and ethnic classification underutilization and demographic information. Unfortunately, due to the City’s obstinance, we have been forced to take the City to court,” they said.

The court filing – which names the City of New York, DCAS, and the FDNY – indicates that “while the workforce of the City of New York is predominately female and non-white, most of the emergency, uniformed services, including the fire-side of the FDNY and the NYPD, have been historically predominately white and male dominated. Conversely, EMS is the City’s most diverse emergency workforce, which has more women and people of color than any other emergency workforce in the city. Upon information and belief, the pay for these members is significantly lower than other similarly situated emergency service employees of the City of New York in majority white and male titles.”

This is not the first time the City has run afoul of its obligations to produce data necessary to determine if it has been discriminating in its pay practices with City employees. A Supreme Court judge last year ordered the City of New York to turn over similar records to Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 1180 in its complaint alleging a pattern of discrimination against employees based on race and gender in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Pay Act of 1963.

Local 2507 represents 4,200 Uniformed Emergency Medical Technicians, Paramedics, and Fire Inspectors, and Local 3621 represents 505 Uniformed EMS Officers, including Captains and Lieutenants.

In 1996, all those positions were moved from the City’s Health and Hospitals Corporation and made part of the FDNY. However, despite this merger into the FDNY, both unions charge that benefits and other rights received by their members fall far short of what their counterparts receive on the fire side of the Department.

Attorney Yetta Kurland, on behalf of the unions, submitted FOIL requests beginning in early May 2017 with DCAS, seeking the names, races, genders, and salary information, job titles, and City and title start dates of City employees of the FDNY (including EMS) and New York City Sanitation Department from January 1, 2007 to present. Additionally, the petitioners requested FDNY records – dating back to 1996 – regarding cases initiated by its Bureau of Investigations and Trials and complaints filed with its Office of Equal Employment Opportunity.

The City repeatedly denied the FOIL requests, citing as its excuse an “unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. There is a hearing scheduled on January 15, 2019 in New York State Supreme Court on the matter.

Said Kurland, “Members of Locals 2507 and 3621 are thankful to have union leadership willing to take on these difficult issues to ensure fair pay and a level playing field for all. Pay inequity hurts everyone, including City Hall, and we will work hard to address and resolve these inequities to the mutual benefit of all. We are grateful that the New York City Council rightfully sees this as an opportunity to ensure that discrimination is stopped and that equality prevails