By Mike Underwood
The Boston Herald
Copyright 2007 Boston Herald Inc.
BOSTON, Mass. — A strike that threatened to leave more than a dozen communities without emergency medical service has been averted.
More than 1,000 paramedics were set to strike this morning over a pay dispute between the paramedics union National Emergency Services Association and ambulance service American Medical Response.
“We have reached a tentative agreement with AMR that we are putting out to our membership. We expect them to ratify that agreement,’' said NEMSA representative Jim Gambone.
He said the agreement would give employees a 14.75 percent pay increase over the next two years, rather than a reduction in their usual percentage raise that the medics viewed as a pay cut.
A strike by NEMSA members would have directly affected 16 communities in Massachusetts and 60 others in Maine and New Hampshire, Gambone said.
The threat raised enough concern that fire chiefs in Framingham had a contingency plan in place to cover a projected shortage of paramedics.