Paramedics and EMTs working for the large private firm Elite Ambulance say the company illegally deducted the cost of red light and speed camera tickets incurred on the job from their paychecks.
In a class action wage theft lawsuit filed Wednesday in Cook County court, plaintiffs say instead of contesting the tickets, which were incurred during emergency calls while running with lights and sirens, the company charged the cost of the moving violations against employees’ pay without their consent.
Of course there is “going through a red light” and “running a red light.” The former requires coming to a stop, making sure that there is no cross traffic, and then proceeding. The second is just driving through like it’s a green light. For the sake of argument I’ll stipulate that the providers involved did the first. If so, then the ticket should have been cancelled when the police officer reviewed the video.
Ha!
Generally, these red light cameras are operated by private companies that send the still or video to a police officer from the department for review. The officer is supposed to view the still or video and decide if it’s a valid infraction. If so, a ticket will be issued technically by the police agency. “Supposed” and “technically” are in scare quotes because more than one the company, with the agreement of the department just sort f skipped the review part. There was a case, I think in Ohio, where the police officer who was supposed to do the reviewing signed off on violations when he was on vacation and other times when he wasn’t on duty.
Oh that.
This was so bad in Ohio that the state Supreme Court essentially banned them because the process that most cities in the state used for appeals was Unconstitutional.
Back to Chicago,
A judge will need to certify the lawsuit as a class action. Elite’s website says it has 2,000 employees and 175 ambulances working in the Chicago area and Northwest Indiana, meaning the class size and dollar amount of any judgment against the company could be significant.
Of course it could take years and Elite could claim bankruptcy to avoid paying. That said, discovery of the process that Chicago uses to determine if a violation is valid should be interesting.
The paramedics and EMTs Canon eventually came to represent began discussing the alleged wage theft during an organizing drive. Last month, workers at Elite filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board.
I won’t get into the debate whether unions in EMS are good or bad, but it’s interesting that the company started to increase enforcement during the drive to certify an election to determine if they will have a union. From my years involved in this sort of thing I know that the government takes a dim view of an employer that attempts to interfere with organizing efforts by employees attempting to bring a union into their workplace.
As the title says it’s “The Chicago Way.”