Why do medics with the FD make more?

[Tk11]

Like 90% their calls are medical. Im not knocking their jobs, I plan to work as a FF/medic one day myself.. But I know medics with ambulance conpaines get paid less and they do the same job the majority of the time. I ran 12 hours with the FD yesterday as a student for my emt clinicals and all the calls we went on were medical.

 

[PotatoMedic]

What is wrong with medical? Trauma is easy.

 

[cprted]

Because the union that represents firefighters are able to negotiate very good contracts for their members.

 

[Handsome Robb]

The majority of single-roll ems providers work for for-profit companies. The more they pay their employees the less profit after expenses there is. Generally EMS providers who work for government run EMS services make near if not as much as their fire counterparts do. In some systems, such as San Antonio Fire or Medic1 in Seattle, it's a promotion and a pay raise.

Also FF/medics are required to be certified and competent in two rolls rather than one.

Like cprted stated the unions for FFs help out a lot as well.

 

[Carlos Danger]

Like 90% their calls are medical. Im not knocking their jobs, I plan to work as a FF/medic one day myself.. But I know medics with ambulance conpaines get paid less and they do the same job the majority of the time. I ran 12 hours with the FD yesterday as a student for my emt clinicals and all the calls we went on were medical.

Because a vast majority of non-fire paramedics work for private companies, a better question is, "why do paramedics employed by the government get compensated better than paramedics who work for private corporations"?

And the answer is simple.......a private corporation has to actually balance expenditures vs. revenue, whereas government entities do not. When a private company makes bad economic decisions - like overpaying employees - they go under. When a government agency makes bad economic decisions, they simply pass the debt on to the next administration, often without ever even fixing the problem.

Witness the horrendous economic condition of the state of California (and a few other states) and many cities within, not to mention the federal government.

 

[BEN52]

I have worked as a paramedic for private services and currently work as a dual role firefighter / paramedic in a municipal department.

Firefighter / Paramedics who make good salaries with nice benefits generally work in "labor" (non right to work) states. The unions (predominantly the IAFF) have fought for decades to get these wages and benefits. Love em or hate em there is much to be gained through organization and solidarity for the long haul.

 

[Carlos Danger]

The existence of unions doesn't adequately explain the difference in compensation between public and private.

If hiring a union to represent you was all it took to get the kind of pay and benefits that municipal employees often have, then every private agency would be unionized, and would have essentially the same compensation as the public employees.

That doesn't happen though, because a union is nothing more than a business, and they know they can't can't get blood from a stone. The unions know that the private employers don't have an endless well of taxpayer-guaranteed debt from which to fund every demand, so it's difficult to even get a union to represent you if you work for a private service.

 

[BEN52]

The existence of unions doesn't adequately explain the difference in compensation between public and private.

If hiring a union to represent you was all it took to get the kind of pay and benefits that municipal employees often have, then every private agency would be unionized, and would have essentially the same compensation as the public employees.

That doesn't happen though, because a union is nothing more than a business, and they know they can't can't get blood from a stone. The unions know that the private employers don't have an endless well of taxpayer-guaranteed debt from which to fund every demand, so it's difficult to even get a union to represent you if you work for a private service.

The poster asked a valid question. Please don't reply if you clearly don't know what you speak of.

Taxpayer guranteed debt? My agency is funded through the collection of taxes as well as ems billing. We as is the case with most fire departments don't operate on any type of bonded debt nor do we generate debt. The bonded debt that some departments use for capital expenditures are no different than a private service utilizing a credit line or bank loan.

Your quick dismissal of the IAFF and their role in our good pay couldn't be further from the truth. The IAFF was started in 1918 by firefighters to improve their situation. No preexisting body saw the firefighters as a good business decision and took them on. The progress has been made over nearly 100 years. The strenght of the IAFF comes through numbers and in turn money. EMS could do this but it requires commitment, money, and time. The wheels of progress are slow turning.

If you want proof that unions are the reason firefighters make good money, compare ff salaries in the north to those in the right to work south. Your looking at low 70s vs high 30s and low 40s.

 

[Carlos Danger]

The poster asked a valid question. Please don't reply if you clearly don't know what you speak of.

My information comes from studying economics. Yours seems to come solely from union propaganda.

The
Taxpayer guranteed debt? My agency is funded through the collection of taxes as well as ems billing. We as is the case with most fire departments don't operate on any type of bonded debt nor do we generate debt. The bonded debt that some departments use for capital expenditures are no different than a private service utilizing a credit line or bank loan.

These statements indicate a fundamental lack of understanding of basic economic principles.

The
Your quick dismissal of the IAFF and their role in our good pay couldn't be further from the truth. The IAFF was started in 1918 by firefighters to improve their situation. No preexisting body saw the firefighters as a good business decision and took them on. The progress has been made over nearly 100 years. The strenght of the IAFF comes through numbers and in turn money. EMS could do this but it requires commitment, money, and time. The wheels of progress are slow turning.

This is sheer union propaganda that has nothing to do with what the OP asked.

The
If you want proof that unions are the reason firefighters make good money, compare ff salaries in the north to those in the right to work south. Your looking at low 70s vs high 30s and low 40s.

You think think that constitutes "proof"? There are many other differences between northern and southern governmental economics.

None of your regurgitated union kool-aid explains why private services don't have the same type of union representation that municipal services do.

 

[BEN52]

Prove me wrong. Show me the specific economic principles that my job is funded by taxpayer guaranteed debt.

 

[Shishkabob]

Also FF/medics are required to be certified and competent in two rolls rather than one.

Let's not confuse required work for competency. Before someone gets angry, I'm not saying they are incompetent, but that's not why they are paid what they are. (Plus, there are FFs who have been grandfathered in, who don't have EMT OR Paramedic certs, yet get paid the same due to the union).


Their salaries are what they are through one thing and one thing only: They and their unions have convinced the public that they should get paid it. Worth it or not is not part of the equation.

 

[Tigger]

The poster asked a valid question. Please don't reply if you clearly don't know what you speak of.

Taxpayer guranteed debt? My agency is funded through the collection of taxes as well as ems billing. We as is the case with most fire departments don't operate on any type of bonded debt nor do we generate debt. The bonded debt that some departments use for capital expenditures are no different than a private service utilizing a credit line or bank loan.

Wut? Collection of taxes=taxpayer guaranteed debt. The fire department doesn't make anything close a profit and is operated at a loss by a municipality. This loss is guaranteed by taxation.

 

[BEN52]

Wut? Collection of taxes=taxpayer guaranteed debt. The fire department doesn't make anything close a profit and is operated at a loss by a municipality. This loss is guaranteed by taxation.

Payment for service does not equate to debt.

The responses to my post elude to why private providers make less money. Failure to adequately assess your value and fight to get paid accordingly.

 

[Tigger]

I don't begrudge those that make more money than me that do the same job. They fought for it and it was given to them. That doesn't mean it's what they should be paid though.

 

[BEN52]

Wut? Collection of taxes=taxpayer guaranteed debt. The fire department doesn't make anything close a profit and is operated at a loss by a municipality. This loss is guaranteed by taxation.

You are mixing debt and cost of operation. Taxes are payment for service. We do not operate at a loss or profit. We operate at a cost based upon providing the level of service desired by the residents and business community.

One of the biggest problems facing single role EMS providers is their continued failure to organize as a profession and as an organized labor force. I wish they would as single role has it's place and my single role compadres deserve the pay and benefits that I enjoy as a union firefighter.

There seems to be a reoccurring theme of acrimony towards the IAFF on this board. I get many of the points but the pros far outweigh the cons IMO.

 

[Tigger]

It absolutely operates at a loss. The fire department provides a service and does not recoup any money from it. It's expected, but still a loss. There isn't anything inherently wrong with that either. It would be great if government in this country could understand that EMS probably can't be operated for profit either, yet many try to.

 

[BEN52]

Tigger, I guess I can agree to disagree with you. I can see your logic I suppose but have a different view of things.

I agree with you that EMS cannot be provided at a high level of care with adequate coverage and appropriately compensated employees at a profit.

 

[Carlos Danger]

Prove me wrong. Show me the specific economic principles that my job is funded by taxpayer guaranteed debt.

Very simple: your department spends far more on it brings in, and taxpayers cover the large gap.

Which is fine; that's how government services always work. But don't pretend that what you do is paid for by something that you produce.

The responses to my post elude to why private providers make less money. Failure to adequately assess your value and fight to get paid accordingly.

Don't kid yourself - your value is not higher than what the private market is willing to pay you. In fact that is the very definition of value. Public unions have ways of twisting and distorting that, though, precisely because they people the unions are negotiating with are making concessions with other people's money, so it's much easier to get them to pay for things that they a private corporation simply couldn't afford, and would have to refuse.

I already explained why private providers make less money. Privates don't have an endless well of taxpayer money to draw from like public agencies do.

I also asked before why more private agencies aren't represented by large unions, and you never answered. The reason is because the unions 1. aren't eager to represent private agency employees, because there is little money to be made (because there isn't that endless well of taxpayer dollars that I keep pointing out), and 2. when unions are brought in, they don't increase compensation much (lack of that endless well of taxpayer dollars again), so employees see it as more of a hassle than it's worth.

A union strategically and intentionally brainwashes it's members into having an overinflated sense of entitlement and worth (which isn't hard to do, since everyone wants to think they are worth more than they are getting), and then uses political pressure, poorly-informed public opinion, and lack of transparency to pressure local officials into approving compensation expenditures that are often far higher than what the market would allow for, should customers actually have to pay directly for service. And then the union itself skims off the top, like a leach. That's how public unions work. It's not good or bad (well, in some cases it's very bad); it's just how it works. Privates unions, again, are very different.

 

[epipusher]

Bigger budgets

 

[BEN52]

Very simple: your department spends far more on it brings in, and taxpayers cover the large gap.

Which is fine; that's how government services always work. But don't pretend that what you do is paid for by something that you produce.



Don't kid yourself - your value is not higher than what the private market is willing to pay you. In fact that is the very definition of value. Public unions have ways of twisting and distorting that, though, precisely because they people the unions are negotiating with are making concessions with other people's money, so it's much easier to get them to pay for things that they a private corporation simply couldn't afford, and would have to refuse.

I already explained why private providers make less money. Privates don't have an endless well of taxpayer money to draw from like public agencies do.

I also asked before why more private agencies aren't represented by large unions, and you never answered. The reason is because the unions 1. aren't eager to represent private agency employees, because there is little money to be made (because there isn't that endless well of taxpayer dollars that I keep pointing out), and 2. when unions are brought in, they don't increase compensation much (lack of that endless well of taxpayer dollars again), so employees see it as more of a hassle than it's worth.

A union strategically and intentionally brainwashes it's members into having an overinflated sense of entitlement and worth (which isn't hard to do, since everyone wants to think they are worth more than they are getting), and then uses political pressure, poorly-informed public opinion, and lack of transparency to pressure local officials into approving compensation expenditures that are often far higher than what the market would allow for, should customers actually have to pay directly for service. And then the union itself skims off the top, like a leach. That's how public unions work. It's not good or bad (well, in some cases it's very bad); it's just how it works. Privates unions, again, are very different.

This is why you make less. You can thank him and all the folks just like him.