$25 per hour EMT-B Pay?

[Veneficus]

I think a wage range of $18-$25 per hour would be commensurate with the work. Look, most of the EMTs I know are squared away people without the grunge factor who are fairly intelligent and emphasize patient care. That is what the companies are built on. But it would depend on where you live cause there are cost differences and stuff.

So if I understand you...

An EMT should be paid more because of their customer service?

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but IFT companies are not built on patient care, they are built on loads hauled.

Does anyone really care about the customer service skills of the truck driver delivering goods to market?

Really though, I think you need to see what EMS really is, not the fantastic idea of what we would like it to be or what it should be.

even in the finest systems and organizations in the world, patient care is directly influenced by the money available. Patients don't pay extra for good service. Neither do insurance companies or medicare/medicade.

They do pay for the medical procedures rendered. What medical procedures do IFT companies really provide that affects outcome?

 

[Dandy]

really? 43 hours.

There are too many factoids floating around, can anyone help us all and site some specific labor codes that let the companies escape paying ot? I mean what if it is just a rumor that we don't earn OT?

 

[Dandy]

Customer service

Okay, so if you are on a big Red Rig doing a bazillion calls to facilities that have to use you because of a city contract then you can have a lousy attitude, be late and hit on the nurses. But in a bls rig going to a facility that can choose which company to use then if you are late or p.o.someone then the company looses lots of runs, right? That is very valuable, don't you think?

 

[adamjh3]

There are hundreds of people that are just as and more qualified than me that want my job. If I do a crappy job on a call, the company can let me go, and have my position filled that day if they so desired. So when you DO land a job, you're going to do everything you can to keep it until you get burned out or move on, because you are very, very easily replaced.

Basics are a dime a dozen right now.

Edit to add: Overtime pay depends on the company. Some (most) will milk every single cent out of you that they can, others are a little more lenient. My company's policy is as follows:

10 hour shifts: 8 hours at straight time and 2 at time an a half. These shifts are generally based on a 40-hour workweek.

12 hour shifts: 8 hours at straight time and 4 at time and a half. These shifts are generally based on a 40-hour workweek.

24 hour (EMT) shifts: 14 hours paid out of 24, (example 8a-12 midnight) with 2 hours of non-paid for meals and 8 hours non-paid sleep. Calls/Responses between 12-midnight and 8am shall be compensated @ 1.5 overtime rate. Employees receiving less than three (3) hours of sleep will be paid for the entire 24-hour shift. Please refer to the Labor Law Rules and Regulations (transportation) regarding the exception of the hourly rule for Ambulance Companies.

I'm okay with this compensation because I like working for this company.

 

[Dandy]

10-4

yeah, I guess you're right...I guess that is why nobody is hiring, cause there are so many people beating down their doors and that make us easily replaceable. It just doesn't seem fair, that's all.

 

[MDA]

Where I work (this goes for Medics and EMTs), you get paid a base rate. Anything over 40 hours a week is considered overtime at 1.5x base rate. Double time use to be rare, but now it's pretty much extinct.

There's special laws that govern ambulance services in almost every state. Luckily we get paid 24 out of 24 hours, but per department of labor they can take out 3 hours of pay in a 24 hour shift (1 hour for each meal), and 8 hours of sleep time (that's a combined total, not all at once), then there's special circumstances with getting calls between a certain time of the night, etc. So be thankful because it could definitely be worse.

If you got into this career for the money, you're insane.

I left LE working as a Probation Officer literally making twice as much as I do now, set schedule with weekends off. However I am now happier than I have ever been since I got back into EMS and that benefits all aspects of my life.

Maybe you need to figure out what you want to do and what's important.

 

[usalsfyre]

You may want to reexamine the laws. There is another classification as well that some EMS fall into that does not pay overtime until after about 43 hours per week. There are numerous ways that a service can get qualified to avoid paying so much overtime.

Off the US DOL website. http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs8.htm

Fire protection personnel employed by a fire department include firefighters, paramedics, emergency medical technicians, rescue workers, ambulance personnel, or hazardous materials workers who are:

1. trained in fire suppression,

2. have the legal authority and responsibility to engage in fire suppression, and

3. are engaged in the prevention, control and extinguishment of fires or response to emergency situations where life, property, or the environment is at risk.

I don't meet any of this at my EMS job, and would wager that most don't unless they work for a fire department.

The FLSA requires that all covered nonexempt employees be paid overtime pay at no less than time and one-half their regular rates of pay for all hours worked in excess of 40 in a workweek.

Section 13(b)(20) of the FLSA provides an overtime exemption to law enforcement or fire protection employees of a public agency which employs less than five employees in law enforcement or fire protection activities.

Section 7(k) of the FLSA provides that employees engaged in fire protection or law enforcement may be paid overtime on a "work period" basis. A "work period" may be from 7 consecutive days to 28 consecutive days in length. For example, fire protection personnel are due overtime under such a plan after 212 hours worked during a 28-day period, while law enforcement personnel must receive overtime after 171 hours worked during a 28-day period. For work periods of at least 7 but less than 28 days, overtime pay is required when the number of hours worked exceeds the number of hours which bears the same relationship to 212 (fire) or 171 (police) as the number of days in the work period bears to 28.

Again, unless you meet the requirements above, there's no exemption for EMS only. Unless you have a legal responsibility to respond and mitigate FIRES and perform RESCUE (not something any straight EMS agency I have ever worked for mandates) you don't fall under this exception, and if your not getting paid OT, your employer is in violation of Federal law.

 

[Dandy]

Wow

You know your stuff. You should be a lawyer. I think I'll show that fsla to my boss and see if he'll pay me for all the OT he owes me. After two years that's a lot of money. I hope I will still have a job next week!

 

[MDA]

This is for CA...

California has a special rule for "ambulance drivers and attendants" who work 24-hours shifts. If certain conditions are met, the rule permits employers to schedule ambulance drivers and attendants to work 24 hours without paying daily overtime pay. The California daily overtime rule states:

"The daily overtime provision of subsection (A) above shall not apply to ambulance drivers and attendants scheduled for 24-hour shifts of duty who have agreed in writing to exclude from daily time worked not more than three (3) meal periods of not more than one (1) hour each and a regularly scheduled uninterrupted sleeping period of not more than eight (8) hours. The employer shall provide adequate dormitory and kitchen facilities for employees on such a schedule.

Under the rule, the employee need only be paid for 13 hours if all the conditions are met, i.e., not more than 3 hours of meal periods which are no longer than 1 hour each, and a regularly scheduled uninterrupted sleep period of not more than 8 hours, and a written agreement to the same. This applies to California daily overtime (for more than 8 hours a work day) and not California weekly overtime (for more than 40 hours a work week)."

To get the benefits of this rule, employers must comply with all the requirements of the 24-hour shift rule. For example, if the sleep time is "on call" instead of scheduled to be uninterrupted, then the employer is not in compliance. If the employee has not made a written agreement, then the employer is not in compliance. In such cases, the employer will be required to pay its employees daily overtime for its 24-hour shift.

A case illustrating how an employer failed to comply with the 24-hour shift rule is Aguilar v. Association for Retarded Citizens. In Aguilar, the employer scheduled employees to work 24-hour shifts, but "temporarily released them" several hours each day to allow them to pursue their personal matters. In other words, they did not work a real 24-hour shift. The court held the employer had to pay the employees for all hours worked, including overtime pay. The court reasoned:

First, the IWC Wage Order clearly distinguishes between employees who work 24-hour shifts and those who work less than 24-hour shifts. The Wage Order expressly provides an exemption from compensation for sleep time only for employees who work 24-hour shifts. The record is clear the employees here do not work 24-hour shifts.

Second, we do not find ARC's characterization of the shifts as being 24-hour shifts with the employees being 'temporar[ily] release[d]...to attend to personal interests' to be persuasive. ARC's characterization would abrogate the distinction between employees working 24-hour shifts and those working less than 24-hour shifts. Under ARC's analysis, all employees in the work force could be characterized as working 24-hour shifts, with the only variation being the length of the 'temporary release...to attend to personal interests.' An accountant who worked 8 hours a day could be viewed as working a 24-hour shift with a 16-hour temporary release period.

ARC's interpretation requires a non commonsense interpretation of the words; if IWC had intended the interpretation that ARC urges -- that employers do not have to compensate employees working 17-hour shifts for sleep time -- IWC easily could have so provided. They, however, did not. We conclude the employees here are entitled to compensation for all the hours worked; ARC is not entitled to deduct those hours when it allows the employees to sleep.

There are a lot of nuances to the 24-hour shift rule, so no case can be considered a "slam dunk" without reasoned analysis. For example, as far as I can tell, there is no California authority describing "ambulance drivers and attendants". The federal law uses the terms "ambulance service personnel", and this is pretty easy to understand. However, whether the term "attendant" includes paramedics and EMT's remains to be seen.

I did indeed sign a waiver agreeing to paid 24 out of 24 hours worked, and anything over 40 hours a week to be paid at 1.5x base pay. It evens out.

 

[MDA]

Off the US DOL website. http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs8.htm



I don't meet any of this at my EMS job, and would wager that most don't unless they work for a fire department.



Again, unless you meet the requirements above, there's no exemption for EMS only. Unless you have a legal responsibility to respond and mitigate FIRES and perform RESCUE (not something any straight EMS agency I have ever worked for mandates) you don't fall under this exception, and if your not getting paid OT, your employer is in violation of Federal law.

From reading that information it does not pertain to privately owned companies. It states it specifically in speaking of fire protection personnel employed by a fire department include firefighters, paramedics, emergency medical technicians, rescue workers, ambulance personnel, or hazardous materials workers.

Around here very, very few Fire Depts. staff EMT's, only Medics, and the rest doesn't even apply. But here in CA we already all know Fire/Medics are paid extremely well, hence why this is the route everyone wants to go.

 

[Ewok Jerky]

my union gets me $17+/hr as an emt-b. union dues is around $50 a month. we get paid straight time for the first 40, time and a half after that

 

[ExpatMedic0]

Beano is this in the bay area? Does your company hire Paramedics also?

 

[MDA]

my union gets me $17+/hr as an emt-b. union dues is around $50 a month. we get paid straight time for the first 40, time and a half after that

Also, what type of company is it?

County/City Fire?
Private?
BLS/ALS/IFT?

Just curious.

 

[looker]

JPINFV emt are easily replaceable. I currently got list of people that are ready to start tomorrow and it's growing. I am pretty sure it's the same with all other EMS company. Etm's do not have the skills that would justify for me to pay $25 an hour.

 

[Ewok Jerky]

Shultz- not in the bay area, yes we have medics

mda- private bls als and ift

 

[medic417]

Only time I have seen $25/hr posted for an emt was an ad for a new company that was moving into the area. The other companies got a little nervous about losing the better people and moved people up about a $1 an hour which gave them $13/hr. Not sure how they thought that competed with $25/hr. Well after some time no one saw any more action from the new company. After some more investigating turns out some emt wanting a pay raise had placed the ad's. I think no one in the area ever did hire him again.

 

[46Young]

And $12-13 is rare? WTX? $11ish is less than In-N-Out burger flippers make! Why do you think ambulance companies can take advantage of us this way?

The difference with low skill jobs that pay the same as, or better than EMS is that they're actually doing work the entire time they're on shift. Whether it's a job at a burger joint, a Target, TGIF, Borders, or whatever, you're expected to be productive the entire time.

With EMS, you can be posting, you can slow it down on the floor or at the drop off, and driving to the call or in between calls isn't exactly hard work. If you're not driving, you can BS on the phone, take a cat nap, read, etc. If you have downtime at the station, you can surf the net, sleep, PT, watch TV, cook and eat, etc. At my job, I typically get one or two workouts, an hour or two of studying at least, either cook dinner or have it cooked for me, and get an average of four to five hours of sleep, on average. Sometimes we get up a few times at night, sometimes we sleep all night.

Basically, these other jobs get much more productivity out of the employee.

Unless you work for a SSM agency :lol:

Edit: We like to compare ourselves to nurses, and like to think that we should be paid more or less the same. Look at how busy they are, and how hard they're working compared to EMS. We also deal with only one pt at a time, not five or ten. EMS is really a low stress job, on the whole. Especially IFT. Tedious and somewhat mentally exhausting, but low stress.

 

[46Young]

Having said that, I was fortunate to have worked in areas with unions. My old hospital wasn't union, but others were, along with FDNY. The hospital would consistently offer more than these union employers to attract the best people.

Regarding my current union employer, I'm making around 70k as a base. As you get into the deep south, firemedics get from around 30-40k to start. No job security or representation, either. I'll take a safe, secure job over one that can fire me at will, even if that protects some skells.

 

[medic417]

Having said that, I was fortunate to have worked in areas with unions. My old hospital wasn't union, but others were, along with FDNY. The hospital would consistently offer more than these union employers to attract the best people.

Regarding my current union employer, I'm making around 70k as a base. As you get into the deep south, firemedics get from around 30-40k to start. No job security or representation, either. I'll take a safe, secure job over one that can fire me at will, even if that protects some skells.

Your union has you snowed. They can still fire you. They can lock all of you out. Sorry unions are not as great as you believe.

 

[46Young]

Your union has you snowed. They can still fire you. They can lock all of you out. Sorry unions are not as great as you believe.

Yeah, if I kill someone or commit sexual harrassment. But, discipline is ensured to be the same for all, as in no favoritism or double standards. They can't fire one of us for just anything. There are progressive discipline procedures to follow, as well as SOP's that specifically spell out what is and isn't punishable.