Hey, Chad Moser!  Remember the message about Re: complaints?
You said to Tom Patierno on 04 Oct 96  00:56:00...
CM> I have not seen most of the situations you mentioned.  The services I 
CM> have been with in the past were 1. a private service 2. a vol. service 
CM> that received funds from donations and a cigarette tax.  The service 
CM> that I am with now is a public utility that sub-contracts a provider 
CM> (AMR at the moment.)
 
You are fortunate.  The bottom line is the motivating force that sets the 
attitude and "altitude" of the commercial services.  That bottom line may 
(usually) means lower pay for workers,running skeleton crews in busy 
communities, and not having support for crews, burned out from running their 
asses off.  For instance, when I started working for a professional service, 
it was $3.80 per hour, and we worked a 24 hour shift.  We were paid for the 
first 13 hours of work, working a 24 hour shift.  We would get paid after 
midnight for runs we went on, and had 15 minutes to finish up after we signed 
off at the ER.  We usually had to chase down the ER staff to get the 
nsurance
information, as well as straighten out our rig, retreive our gear, restock.  
It rarely took 15 minutes.  We also were given 3 hours per day unpaid lunch 
leave, but were not allowed to shut off the radio, and had to be ready to 
respond during these unpaid breaks.  With an average of 12 calls per day, we 
usually ate "on the fly".  
    This doesn't go on any more, thanks to a group of workers complaining to 
the Labor Dept. in our state.  It was NOT management that decided this was 
unfair, it was workers collectively making a stand against managements' 
demand.  "Collective" and "workers" are the operatives here, and can be quite 
influential in many cases.  Management had to re- examine itself, and provide 
a safer environment for it's workers, or risk having binding arbtration make 
the decision for them.  As it was, all those "unpaid" meal breaks were paid 
retroactively.  Unforunately, many good EMT's left the field, burned out.
    Considering that physicians have organizations like the AMA advocating 
or
their collective interests, would it be considered unreasonable EMT's having 
the same right to collective advocacy?  Since being an EMT requires 150 hours 
of training before you can be called an "EMT", and becoming a firefighter 
requires 180 hours of training before you can be called a "fire fighter", 
would you say that you make the same amount/ operate under the same work 
ules
as fire fighters?  The training to become either is about the same.
Regards,
Tom Patierno
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