CoCoMedic

When I worked for a small Mom & Pop ambulance company, they used to use teflon tape on the threads for large O2 tanks. Its cheap and available at any hardware store.

You are correct, my information regarding the situation at Piners Ambulance did come from one of several emails from NEMSA, their union representatives. Therefore I concede that my facts may have been skewed. However my information regarding the contract negotiations at AMR in Northern California comes from my own personal experience and also from extensive communications with our labor leaders and with my fellow employees here in Contra Costa County.

My name is Eric, and I am a Paramedic for Contra Costa County here in Northern California, and I wanted to clear up a few misconceptions about the events that are occurring with Piners Ambulance, and also with ourselves and AMR: Number 1: Piners Ambulance employees are going on strike because they want a fair and equitable contract. First of all they were not offered a 10% to 19% raise (this is in reference to a contract that was offered by AMR to their employees) They simply want a fair contract period. Employees have been, harrassed, fired, demoted, disciplined, and had wages cut simply because they organized into a Labor Union. Multiple Unfair Labor Practice Violations have been filed on behalf of their new union against the owner of Piners Ambulance. Furthermore, these are employees that make between 5 to 8 dollars LESS per hour than the majority of Paramedics within the area (including myself). So in my opinion they are already very hardworking and self sacrificing people in the first place. Emergency Medical Services personnel should be treated better than this. Number 2: American Medical Response proposed their "Final and Last" offer to their employees that belong to the Northern California bargaining unit (which is currently run by NEMSA, the National Emergency Medical Services Association). The problem with this last and final offer is that no one had been even sitting down at a bargaining table to discuss the issues! Our Union reps had a couple of phone conversations with the AMR negotiator and they pasted together a lousy propoosal. There was no committe, there were no sit downs, there was no mediator, there was just AMR on the phone sayng to us: "this is the best you are gonna get, now leave us alone, and get back to work". The contract that was proposed was a 6% raise now, and a 4.5 % raise next year, and thats it. However, my fellow co-workers and I have long felt that our new union is either not performing their job, or is colluding with the enemy in an attempt to bust the union, because they tried to sell this contract offer as being excellent. One of the ways that they tweaked the facts is that they said that an average employee would get a raise of between 10% to 19% per year, which was quite honestly just a twisting of the numbers so that they could look good. The actual raise is 6.0% this year, and 4.5% next year, and we are due for a cost of living raise (its been almost 14 months). Another thing that our union failed to publicize is that AMR established themselves as being our Health Insurance Provider, i.e. they self insured their employees. This was done BEFORE any contract was ratified. AMR said that they would NOT reduce our benefits in our previous contract, and they have filed a couple of 30 day extensions with that contract up through August. Yet all of a sudden people were faced with a dramatic and hellish change in their medical insurance. People who had been on medications for years, now faced huge increases in their costs (hundreds of dollars sometimes), or they faced huge increases in their co-pays (from $10 a doctor's visit to $40, or $65). And now if anyone of us is seriously ill or injured we can expect to pay huge portions of our hospital stays. The dramatic change in the insurance was not a result of AMR asking us to shoulder an increased burden of the cost, it was a move to distribute increased profits to their shareholders while screwing over the employees (thats why all of our costs went sky-hi, its because AMR is now profiting on our medical coverage). Experts in the industry have even publicly stated that this is one of the worst insurance programs they have ever seen. Anyone and everyone that is placed on this plan has elected to acquire insurance through their spouses if such an alternative plan was available to them, this includes the AMR upper management at our own Operations Center. Did the employees here vote to strike? Technically, yes they did. but once again this is a huge twisting of the facts. What really occurred is that our crappy union (NEMSA) sent out ballots for us to vote on whether to ratify the lousy contract offer that AMR had put on the table. On the ballots they had two choices: [YES] or [NO, I vote to strike]. What most of us really wanted is for our union to actually sit down at the bargaining table and hash out a compromise with AMR, instead of bending over and allowing them to control the entire situation. Therefore most of us marked the "NO, I vote to strike" box, even though it had a strike clause attached to it. Our intentions were primarily to force both AMR and our Union back to the table. A strike is not yet in our future, although I can't rule out the possibility. However, as long as our union leaders continue to sign 30 day extensions on the old contract we are prohibited from striking. So things are not as honk and dory as everyone on this message thread has implied. Although I agree that the employees of Piners going on strike is a dramatic measure I think that something needs to be done to rectify the situation. I agree that is unnacceptable for the citizens of Napa to go without emergency services, but its also unnacceptable for the EMT's and Paramedics are Piners Ambulance to be treated in the manner that they have. Hopefully this threat of a strike will bring reason and sanity to an flammable situation.