Public Employee Press

Grievance nets $2 million for EMS Captains

Fifty members of EMS Lieutenants and Captains Local 3621 will be sharing a hefty windfall totaling $2 million for out-of-title work they did.

The EMS Captains were handling various supervisory responsibilities that are supposed to be assigned to EMS Deputy Chiefs. Captains each have an assigned station, but Deputy Chiefs are responsible for all of the stations in a division or borough. And depending on the nature of an accident, they work with several city agencies and hospital administrators.

Some Captains were also being held responsible for delays in response time, another responsibility of Deputy Chiefs.

Council Rep Raul Martinez filed their grievance in 2009. At the Step 3 hearing, the city claimed that the 50 were not doing out-of-title work, so Local 3621 President Vincent Variale and the DC 37 Legal Dept. took the issue to impartial arbitration.

Assistant General Counsels Dena Klein and Steven Sykes represented the union during the arbitration process.

After four hearings, on Sept. 30 the arbitrator ruled in favor of the union and ordered the Fire Dept. to pay the members the difference between what they got as Captains and the higher salary of an EMS Deputy Chief, retroactively from the date of the grievance until they are no longer assigned as Deputy Chiefs.

The union legal team "did a fantastic job," said Variale.

"Our members welcome more responsibilities - that's our job, to serve the people of New York City," Variale said. "But we insist on being paid accordingly."