City's Veterans Day diss may foil records request

over 7 years in NY Daily

EMS workers planning to sue the city for pay parity may be foiled again.

Two EMS unions trying to fight Freedom of Information Law rejections from City Hall have been told their appeals are no good — because the city doesn’t count Veterans Day as an official holiday.

EMS unions will argue against the city in court on Monday.

EMS Locals 2507 and 3621 want city data about uniformed city employees’ salaries and disciplinary histories to support a possible discrimination lawsuit.

The Law Department claims the locals should be “time-barred” from challenging the city’s FOIL denials of their data requests because they filed their paperwork a day late.

The error, the city says, is that the unions counted Veterans Day as an official day off.

Veterans Day is a federal holiday. But under ciry interpretation, it doesn’t count as a holiday under New York’s Civil Practice Law and Rules, which govern legal procedures.

Therefore, the city says, the unions’ legal challenge to FOIL rejections should be tossed.

“The statute of limitations issue here is whether claims in connection with one of three … FOIL requests were brought within the legal deadline,” said Law Department spokesman Nick Paolucci.

“Petitioners argue that they get an extra day because of Veterans Day, but the law is to the contrary,” Paolucci said.

Yetta Kurland, attorney for the EMS unions, said the city’s position added insult to injury — and was factually wrong, since the union’s paperwork was actually filed Nov. 9, the day before Veterans Day.

“The city seeks to dismiss us by claiming a technicality — that the unions had four months to file the suit and missed the deadline. But that deadline came on Veterans Day,” she said.

“Clearly the city does not respect the rights of EMS workers to have records necessary to ensure fair pay,” said Kurland. “Not only was our petition filed before Veterans Day, but does the city now also not respect Veterans Day as a legal holiday?”

The FOIL fracas began in November 2017, when EMS Locals 2507 and 3621 filed a suit in Manhattan Supreme Court accusing the city and the Fire Department of ignoring or wrongfully denying multiple FOIL requests.

The EMS unions — which represent city emergency medical technicians, paramedics, fire inspectors and EMS officers — want information on the pay, rank, gender, race and discipline history on employees across several different uniformed agencies.

They also want the same information — especially the disciplinary records — for the members of their own unions.

The two labor groups argue that their members — 30% female and 56% black, Latino or Asian — are wrongly denied the same pay and benefits as other city workers in comparable titles, and are subjected to more frequent discipline.

They want the data to be able to prove their claims, and then possibly file a discrimination suit.

The city, citing privacy laws, has denied the unions all access to the data — a move the EMS unions and their attorneys see as an attempt to quash the looming discrimination case.

“We know that these inequities exist and my office recently released a report that reveals systemic problems throughout our city agencies,” said Public Advocate Letitia James.

“It is imperative that the city turn over this data so that we can address these issues and finally right these wrongs,” said James, whose office has filed an amicus brief in support of the workers.

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