To whom it may concern,
I read that you're considering a “hero pay” ordinance and I think there is a large group of individuals you missed- the EMTs and paramedics within your city who work for private companies. They are exposing themselves on a daily basis in confined spaces with poor ventilation to respond to your citizens emergencies. EMS personnel aid your citizens in their time of need and in addition to that, they now are administering vaccines to your citizens. Many of these EMTs and paramedics would never ask to be called heroes and many honestly would not like that title, but many of these EMTs make within a dollar per hour of minimum wage. I personally know someone who left a grocery store as a courtesy clerk to be an emt who took a three dollar per hour pay cut because he wanted to help people. Covid has definitely added some additional expenses to their households that add up. It's expensive and very stressful to make sure they don’t bring Covid home to the people they love, on themselves, in their car, or on their uniforms. In addition to that, many hours were cut for EMS personnel or they opted to take pto in order to not get laid off or have any of their coworkers laid off early on in the pandemic knowing once staff leaves they won’t be there for the surges in cases. The companies they work for did less than the major grocery store chains when it came to “hero pay" at the peaks of the pandemic. Many of the larger stores were adding an additional dollar to three dollars per hour to the employees wages. I would highly encourage you to not forget those people who take care of your citizens yet hardly complain to the press or make a big deal of things.
Thank you,
An Emt
