Deal preserves 12-hour shifts for the city’s first responders

Honolulu paramedics and emergency medical technicians will work 12-hour shifts for another year under a new agreement reached between the city and the United Public Workers union announced Thursday.

Most of the roughly 240 first responders in the Department of Emergency Services have been working 12-hour shifts since August. But now eight-hour shifts will go away altogether, and all field units will be under the policy, city and UPW officials said.

Besides being popular among employees, the switch resulted in a $700,000 drop in overtime costs during the last fiscal year, EMS Director Mark Rigg said.

The new agreement runs through Aug. 30, 2016.

The two sides chose a one-year extension, rather than make the 12-hour shift change permanent, because “we still feel there needs to be … more data analysis” on financial and operational impacts, UPW state Director Dayton Nakanelua said.

“The city plans to monitor the pilot 12-hour alternate work schedule to ensure it continues to prove positive for the community and be a cost-saving measure,” Rigg said in a statement responding to questions.

Paramedics and EMTs overwhelmingly prefer the schedule that allows them to alternate three- and four-day workweeks over the traditional eight-hour, five-day workweeks, Nakanelua said. When Rigg sent out a memo to employees earlier this summer suggesting the city might have to return to eight-hour schedules, union members who contacted his office were unanimous in their calls to keep the 12-hour policy, he said.

EMS officials said they sent out the message only because they did not know whether a deal to extend the 12-hour shifts could be reached in time, which would have meant reverting back to the eight-hour shifts.

The agency contends that 12-hour shifts keep personnel fresher through the shorter workweeks, which in turn reduces absenteeism and mandatory overtime.

Among the reported kinks with the pilot project was that it continued to allow opportunities for overtime abuse.

But Rigg said that a compromise reached with the union bars employees from receiving OT if they call in sick on Saturday.

“Saturday was the day of the week which had the greatest amount of sick leave use, which occasionally led to unit closures,” he said. The restriction does not apply to the other six workdays.