Mass quitting? Doubtful, the people who get screwed are those with seniority and medics unless the company is on a sliding pay scale that automatically adjusts. If your new emts are getting a dollar an hour raise it would reason everyone else needs a raise. I have heard there is now a massive shortage of EMT and medic applicants even in socal. AMR victorville is offering a 2k sign on bonus for medics, friends that work at Care state they get a referral bonus and they are running orientations every two weeks just trying to keep up. The reality is the economy has improved and people have a lot more options than making minimum to get treated like crap on an ambulance and worked into the ground to make the stockholders richer and get the ops managers their bonuses. I think part of it also has to do with the word about firefighter jobs getting out. Even though there is a lot of hiring going on now there was 5 years where no one hired and you were literally playing the lottery hoping to get a full time FF job in socal. People are tired of spending 4-5 years of their life going to the academy, emt school, private ambulance, paramedic school, all on their own dime only to have the privilege of being able to apply for entry level FF jobs
