By JOSEPH R. DAUGHEN
Philadelphia Daily News
While Philadelphia’s attention was focused on the talks between SEPTA and Transport Workers Local 234, another labor-management standoff - with possibly greater public safety implications - was unfolding behind closed doors.
That’s the Philadelphia firefighters’ talks with the city. And high on the firefighters’ wish list are steps that they want the city to take to relieve what they say is the relentless pressure on Philadelphia’s paramedics.
Attempts to break that standoff are to continue today, when representatives of the city and Local 22 of the International Firefighters Association meet in a private arbitration session aimed at getting the two sides to agree to a new contract.
The union says the paramedics are suffering from a woefully short-handed staff, and the stress has grown so great that the emergency-health-services system is in danger of breaking down, according to the firefighters.
While paramedics make up a little more than 10 percent of the 2,400 members of Local 22, their plight has become an important bargaining point for the union.
The union is ready for a showdown, said vice president Bill Gault, because the number of paramedics has fallen perilously low, to about 290. That’s down more than 25 percent from the 400 who were on the job four years ago, when the last contract was being arbitrated, he said.
This has had a major impact in a variety of ways, said Gault.
“It’s a safety issue because we run out of rescue squads every day, and people who may be seriously ill have to wait,” he said. “It affects the health of our paramedics because they are on the go nonstop for entire tours, doing work that drains you emotionally and physically, without even a break for a meal.”
Calls placed to the office of Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers seeking comment over the last month were not returned.
Among the demands the union says it will bring to the arbitration table are:
Creation of a stress-relief program to deal with the widespread “burnout” problem that drives the average paramedic out after seven or eight years, well short of qualifying for a 10-year pension. A union consultant said stress levels among local paramedics resemble “what you would see coming out of Vietnam.”
An agreement to allow paramedics, who work two 10-hour and two 14-hour days a week, time to eat lunch or dinner. There are no scheduled meal breaks at present, the union says.
The provision of a second radio to each two-member Emergency Medical System team. At present, only one team member has a radio, a situation the union calls dangerous.
A redeployment plan that would enable paramedics to rotate periodically from rescue vehicles to fire trucks, where they would work for a time as firefighters.
Paramedics make roughly $50,000, 10 percent more than the $45,000 paid to firefighters. Plus, they average an additional $20,000 to $30,000 in overtime, but more than one-third of them want to transfer to the lower-paying firefighter’s job.
“The Fire Department made 255,000 runs in 2004, and 200,000 of them were medical and not fires,” said union official Gault. “We have under 300 paramedics, meaning we’re already short at least 50, and 106 of them have applied to get out and become firefighters.”
Just about every day, said Gault, paramedic teams will respond to an emergency call within minutes of the start of their tour and spend the next 10 or 14 hours answering call after call without a break - and then often working overtime.
Forty paramedic units are in Philadelphia - 39 in the city and one at the airport. Of the 39 city units, 27 operate 24 hours a day, and 12 work just 12 hours a day.
Two paramedics testified about the stress of their jobs during the last contract’s arbitration hearings. Each said that making nonstop emergency runs shift after shift had affected their health, and each felt he could work only another two or three years.
One was 33; the other was 25.
Dr. Lori Moore, the emergency-medicine specialist for the International Firefighters Association, said the two paramedics worked in two of the busiest units in the country. Each, she said, was handling 10 to 12 calls per shift, a number she called “appalling.”
“Then we start to see the burnout,” said Moore. “We start to see the ramifications of what you would see coming out of Vietnam.”
The level of calls handled by the two paramedics and their co-workers “is unheard of,” said Moore.
“We have overtime coming out the wazoo, and people are turning it down because there’s only so many hours you can work,” Gault said. “There’s a million-and-a-half people in this city and for a lot of them, especially the poor people, 911 has become their health-care system.”
There is a financial aspect to the city’s EMS activities. Since the Police Department stopped providing medical transportation a decade ago, the Fire Department has been billing those who call paramedics, or their insurance companies, for services. In the year ended June 30, the city received $23.8 million in such payments, according to the City Controller’s Office.
It could not be determined how much of the cost to provide these services was defrayed by the payments.
The old, four-year contract expired July 1. The matter was referred to binding arbitration when the city and the union couldn’t agree to a new contract. Firefighters, like police officers, are barred by state law from striking and must submit to binding arbitration.