Contributing Writers: Azad Ali, Tangerine Clarke,
Nelson King, Vinette K. Pryce, Bert Wilkinson
GENERAL INFORMATION (718) 260-2500
Caribbean L 12 ife, APRIL 23-29, 2021
By Brooklyn Borough
President Eric Adams and
Council Member Justin
Brannan
In the past year, it has
been hard to imagine someone
more essential than an
EMS worker.
In those dark and early
days of COVID-19, one of the
eerie markers of the pandemic’s
presence in our city
was the haunting sound of
ambulance sirens, non-stop,
morning and night.
Behind those sirens were
EMS workers, who were courageously
saving lives while
risking their own. They were
first responders working double
overtime, pulling long,
harrowing shifts and enduring
lasting emotional traumas
while many of us quarantined
safely in the comfort
of our homes. Many EMS
workers indeed lost their
lives, and many more got
sick. So did their families.
Given their sacrifice, and
how crucial these workers
were to our collective survival,
you would think they
would be among some of the
highest-paid civil servants in
this city. The reality could not
be further from the truth.
An EMS worker gets paid
as low as $33,320 in their
first year of service. For a fulltime
worker, that amounts to
just barely above minimum
wage. EMS workers, who are
overwhelmingly Black and
Brown and majority women,
often work two or more jobs
just to put food on the table
— and inexplicably are at
times shamed for it. They
also disproportionately commute
from far corners of the
outer boroughs, the only
neighborhoods their wage
permits them to afford.
There’s no other way to
say it: The way New York City
treats our EMS workers is
shameful, if not borderline
discriminatory.
We have a chance to right
this wrong. This year marks
the 25th anniversary of the
City merging the FDNY
and EMS into one agency,
in a well-meaning attempt
to streamline city services.
While the goal was that
workers from both agencies
would eventually reach pay
parity, the disparity in pay
has only grown, more than
tripling. To be clear, no one
should question whether
FDNY workers deserve every
penny of what they make.
They are in the business of
self-sacrifice and saving lives,
something that we can never
really adequately compensate,
as tragedies like 9/11
have proven. But so too are
EMS workers, yet they are
treated as second-class.
The best way to achieve
pay parity for EMS workers is
to give them their own independent
agency, where they
are not an afterthought, but
the main show. They need
their own commissioner
and their own agency built
to support their work, negotiate
with their union over
their salaries, and troubleshoot
and coordinate when
the next citywide emergency
hits. They need an agency
that can prioritize taking
care of the workers who take
care of us, including access to
quality mental health care.
Part of responsible governance
is acknowledging
when something we try simply
does not work. We’ve seen
enough over the last 25 years
to know that the original
goals behind merging FDNY
and EMS did not materialize.
It’s time to undo the merger,
and give EMS workers the
representation, funding, and
professionalism they deserve.
As the dust settles from
COVID-19, after all we’ve been
through and all we have sacrificed,
it would be a shame if
no lessons were learned. We
now know all too well how
quickly an emergency can
render New Yorkers vulnerable.
We need to invest in the
caretakers. We need to invest
in EMS.
By Kyle Bragg and Corey
Johnson
On any given day, Amber
Drummond, a security officer
at a homeless shelter in Queens,
reminds shelter clients to wear
masks, conducts room checks,
and gets help for clients with
medical needs. She might help
mediate a dispute, or lend an
ear to an elderly shelter resident
to hear her struggles.
Amber has been working at
different shelters for over two
years, and enjoys being able to
create a welcoming space for
clients. But Amber, like a lot of
New Yorkers, can’t afford housing
in this city. When she finishes
her shift at the Queens
shelter, she heads to another
shelter – where she is currently
living.
As New York is poised to
receive much needed funds
from the federal government to
aid in economic recovery, our
city must invest in the essential
workers like Amber who have
been on the front lines. As a
security officer in a city homeless
shelter, keeping some of the
most vulnerable New Yorkers
safe, she is part of a group of
essential workers which needs
special attention.
These men and women have
kept our city running and safe,
and they have taken on the
brunt of the health and economic
stresses of the pandemic.
Now it’s time for our city to support
them.
Hundreds of shelter security
officers like Amber work under
incredibly difficult conditions,
conditions that the COVID-19
pandemic has exacerbated for
them and those they watch
over.
However, officers who work
at shelters funded by the city
and run by non-profits do not
get the same wages, benefits,
training or protections as officers
doing the same work at
shelters directly run by the
city. That’s wrong, and the City
Council and SEIU 32BJ are
ready to work together to right
this inequity.
All security officers deserve
wages that will provide them
and their families stability.
They deserve health care. They
deserve training that will equip
them to deal with difficult circumstances.
They deserve peace
of mind. They deserve the Safety
in Our Shelters (SOS) Act.
This legislation, which a
majority of Council members
currently support, would
require the nonprofits that run
shelters and receive billions
of dollars in City contracts to
pay the industry standard rate
to the nearly 3,000 workers at
shelters funded by the city and
run by non-profits. For a security
officer working full time, that
would translate to receiving up
to $7,000 more on an annual
basis above their current substandard
wages.
The legislation would also
give these workers 40 hours of
training that matches what is
required for security at shelters
directly run by the City, including
content specific to work in
the shelters. This training will
help them keep safe themselves
and the people they watch over.
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NY City needs to treat EMS
workers so much better
Security who protect the
most vulnerable deserve
our support
Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) lift a patient
that was identifi ed to have coronavirus disease
(COVID-19) into an ambulance while wearing protective
gear, as the outbreak of coronavirus disease
(COVID-19) continues, in New York City, New York,
U.S., March 26, 2020. REUTERS/Stefan Jeremiah,fi le
/schnepsmedia.com
