• Emergency medical personnel work long hours and may not be guaranteed overtime pay.paramedic image by Byron Moore from Fotolia.com
  
  Emergency medical workers fall under the same labor laws that govern the majority of employees throughout the country with a few exceptions. While EMS personnel are entitled to safe working conditions and fair wages through federal labor laws, some states have enacted laws to account for the long hours that EMS personnel are required to work.
  
  

Scheduled Shifts

• Emergency medical personnel may be required to work shifts that last for an entire 24-hour period. Even though emergency personnel may not be actively working the entire time, the nature of the business requires that they remain alert, on the premises and able to perform duties at the highest level. As such emergency medical personnel are required to be paid for every hour on the job. Some states, like California refer to these work periods as "on-call" time and use the above-mentioned criteria to determine if the employee should be paid for the entire scheduled shift or not.
  
  

Overtime Pay Rates

• Because of EMS personnel's lengthy shifts, many states, including Colorado and California, exempt EMS workers from overtime laws. This means that under normal circumstances emergency medical technicians and drivers may not be paid an increased wage for hours worked outside of the normal work day or work week. Colorado maintains an exception to this rule allowing EMS personnel to receive overtime pay when weekly hours exceed 40. Overtime pay is calculated at the employee's base hourly rate plus one-half. For example, if an EMS worker's hourly rate is $20, then his overtime pay rate is $30.
  
  

Obligation to Provide Care

• As part of the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act, emergency medical personnel in the field are required to administer stabilizing care to all injured individuals regardless of anyone's ability to pay for this care. It is a violation of federal law for an emergency medical worker to refuse care while in the field. This works in contrast to many state's "at will" employment laws where an employee can terminate his employment at any time for any reason. An emergency medical worker that chooses to leave his position during an emergency call could be ruled civilly or criminally liable.