If I am taking your jobs..come get them. Don't expect me to try to change things so you can have a job. Thats up to you. I would love for our department to be full time but I know the trustees...they are old firemen that dont care about EMS.
I tend to agree with this statement. If you
CHOOSE to make a career doing a job that thousands are willing to do for free, what do you expect? I would bet that even the oldest, most experienced medics that have been doing this for their entire career knew when they made the decision to get into EMS that there were thousands of volunteers doing this "job". Now these people complain that "volunteers are ruining this job". I have read on this forum in the past statements like "would you volunteer to pickup trash, pave streets, or other menial jobs"? No, nobody wants to do those jobs for free, so the town has to pay someone to do it. That argument is comparing apples and oranges. People will do EMS/firefighting for free. You knew that going in, so stop complaining and deal with it!
If you don't want to compete with volunteers, or are upset that volunteers are keeping wages down, you should have chosen a different career path, one people don't want to do for free. I'm an electrician. Nobody wants to do my job for free (aside from a DIY homeowner who will end up calling us anyway to fix their mistakes afterwards). Actually there are less people entering my field every year than people retiring, meaning eventually there will be an electrician shortage driving both prices and salaries higher. Most people don't want to do my job at all, which is fine by me. It's a dirty, physical job with no glory and very little respect, but it pays well and I can make as much money as I want by doing side jobs and such. I love it!
EMS/Fire/Police have a never ending line of applicants, all of whom will do anything to get the job including working for peanuts. As we all know there is a very high turnover at the lower levels of EMS, and an unlimited labor pool for employers to pick from to replace those leaving. This is due to the amount of education required to enter the field, it's a joke even at the paramedic level never mind the basic level. That is what is stopping the professional from progressing, not volunteers. Increase the education levels across the board and let the chips fall where they may.
I have read on this forum people questioning if there would still be volunteers if the educational standards were increased, probably, but I'm sure the number of volunteers would drastically decrease. I'll be honest, if the education requirements were a lot tougher I would probably not do this. I'm not a volunteer, we're paid oncall, but the money I make doing ambulance calls would definitely not convince me to make a whole lot more of an investment in education to continue. I have enough to do to maintain my electrical licenses both in license renewal fees and continuing education requirements (both of which are much more intensive than that required to maintain my EMT cert.).
Increasing the education requirements for all levels would not only affect the number of volunteers, but would also eliminate the number of "wannabees" who aren't really serious about a career in ems but get into it because it's "easy money".
To say that volunteers are bringing down the profession gives way to much credit to all of the lazy providers at every level, both paid and vollie, who do the absolute minimum to get by in this field. There are plenty of so called "professionals" who show up, do their shift, and get paid. They do no more than what is absolutely necessary to keep their job. They don't go on websites such as this to learn from others, they don't research topics to learn any new things, they don't take extra classes to better themselves. They show up for the paycheck, period.
So all of this volunteer vs. paid stuff is BS. If you want to better the profession - great! Increase initial education requirements, increase continuing education requirements, make the testing more difficult. There might be some volunteers who will still do this no matter what the requirements are, and so what? As long as the requirements are the same across the board for both paid and vollie that is all that should matter. Volunteers were doing this before you came, and will be doing it long after your gone. Deal with it!
I personally don't think this scenario is going to help the EMT-B low salary problem. 
