By Thomas Tracy
New York Daily News
NEW YORK — The union representing the city’s cash-strapped emergency medical technicians and paramedics is encouraging its members to transfer out of Manhattan to avoid paying congestion pricing fees, the Daily News has learned.
EMS Local 2507 President Oren Barzilay sent out his advisory to the 270 city EMTs and paramedics assigned to the three EMS stations in Midtown and Lower Manhattan this week.
Congestion tolling is scheduled to start on Jan. 5 in New York City, barring any last-minute legal challenges. Anyone coming into Manhattan below 60th St. will be charged an additional $9 on top of already existing bridge and tunnel tolls.
On Thursday the state of New Jersey filed for a last-minute injunction to stop the MTA toll.
Barzilay wants his members working in Midtown and lower Manhattan to transfer to other boroughs, where congestion pricing will not apply.
While emergency vehicles do not have to pay the fee, EMTs and paramedics driving into Manhattan in their personal cars will need to.
EMTs and paramedics are already being paid a much lower salary than first responders in other municipalities and shouldn’t be forced to pay this extra tax to get to work, Barzilay said.
“Already suffering with poverty wages, and the mayor’s complete refusal to pay us a true living wage, New York City’s emergency medical first responders are now about to be pickpocketed by a state agency and its new MTA’s driving tax,” Barzilay said. “FDNY’s financially struggling EMTs and paramedics can simply no longer afford to protect the inhabitants of Manhattan from 60th Street to the Battery, and our members have been asking for transfers.”
Emails to the FDNY and City Hall were not immediately returned.
Starting pay for FDNY EMTs is $18.94 an hour, only $2.44 above the city’s 2025 minimum wage and $1.02 less than the $19.96-an-hour minimum wage that app-based food delivery workers are expected to receive beginning on April 1, 2025, union officials said.
“These heroes of the pandemic have been completely forgotten by New York’s elected officials,” Barzilay said, adding that many of his members have to take second jobs and survive on food stamps.
“Congestion pricing without exemptions for FDNY EMS is a public-safety time bomb waiting to detonate,” he said. “It will likely have a large, negative impact on public safety.”
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