Eric Adams once stood before Emergency Medical Services workers and promised us parity — equal pay and benefits with police and fire. As a former cop, he said he understood our sacrifice. Today, that promise is broken. And morale in New York City’s EMS ranks is shattered.
FDNY EMS is still the lowest-paid emergency service in the city. Our starting salaries lag tens of thousands of dollars behind NYPD and firefighters, even though we respond to the same 911 calls and face the same dangers. Our benefits are thinner. Our retirement protections are weaker. And our workforce — made up largely of women and people of color — is burning out under crushing stress and financial strain.
I see it every day. A paramedic trains for years, gains experience under pressure, and then leaves for a neighboring county or another state where the pay is higher and the benefits stronger. New Yorkers lose skilled medics. The system loses stability. The result? Longer response times, overworked crews, and a city less prepared for the next crisis.
Mayor Adams knows this. He worked side by side with EMS. He knows the trauma we carry home, the patients we lose, and the toll it takes on our bodies and minds. He knows it was EMS that kept this city breathing during COVID, when thousands of New Yorkers were dying each week and 911 calls shattered every record in history. He knows that when someone dials those three numbers, it’s EMS that shows up.
When the union interviewed him during his initial campaign four years ago I stated to him, “When you were a cop you yelled into your radio ‘rush the bus!’ You weren’t talking about the MTA.”
And yet — he turned his back on us.
It’s not just a broken campaign promise. It’s a betrayal. EMS workers believed that one of our own — someone who wore a uniform — would finally deliver fairness. Instead, we’ve been told to wait while City Hall funds everything else but the medics who hold the city together in its darkest moments.
The disparity is not just unfair. It’s dangerous. The city’s ability to recruit and retain medics is collapsing. When you’re paid poverty wages in one of the most expensive cities in the country, when your benefits don’t protect you after years of physical and emotional wear, the message is clear: your sacrifice isn’t valued.
This is also an issue of equity. EMS in New York City is one of the most diverse workforces in public safety. To keep us at the bottom of the pay scale while police and fire enjoy parity is to perpetuate racial and gender injustice. That’s not just poor policy. That’s systemic discrimination hiding in plain sight.
The public should understand: EMS doesn’t have the luxury of saying “no.” When disaster strikes, when the city goes dark, when a pandemic sweeps through, it’s our phones that ring off the hook. We don’t walk away. We don’t stop showing up.
During COVID, when the city’s streets were filled with sirens, EMS kept the system from collapsing. We carried New Yorkers in body bags out of their homes and still went on to the next call. All while being paid a fraction of what other first responders earn.
The mayor says he cares about public safety. But public safety is more than crime stats and fire suppression. Public safety is the cardiac arrest in Queens, the overdose in the Bronx, the stroke on Staten Island. Public safety is the 1.5 million calls and growing EMS answers every year. Without EMS, the city’s 911 system collapses.
New Yorkers can’t afford a broken EMS system. Every second counts in an emergency, and every medic who leaves because they can’t support a family makes the system weaker.
We’ve been patient. We’ve been professional. We’ve done our jobs through 9/11, through Sandy, through COVID, through every disaster this city has faced. All we’ve asked for is fairness.
Mr. Mayor, you promised us pay and benefit parity. It’s time to keep that promise — not for us alone, but for the millions of New Yorkers who count on EMS when their lives are on the line.
When New Yorkers call 911, EMS always shows up. It’s time for City Hall to show up for us.
Almojera is an FDNY EMS lieutenant and vice president of Uniformed EMS Officers Union Local 3621 and author of “Riding The Lightning: A Year in the Life of a New York City Paramedic.”