Prop 11: Ambulance Employees On-Call During Breaks
Props in a Minute: Prop 11 - Ambulance Workers On-Call
This proposition passed.
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What? | |
| Requires ambulance workers to be on-call during breaks. | |
Why? | |
In 2016, the Supreme Court ruled that security guards were not required to be on-call during breaks. This proposition makes ambulance workers exempt from this ruling. | |
Vote Yes
| Vote No
|
| Supports allowing ambulance providers to require workers to remain on-call during breaks as long as they are paid at their regular rate. | Opposes allowing ambulance providers to require workers to remain on-call during breaks as long as they are paid at their regular rate. |
The initiative also would require employers to provide emergency medical technicians and paramedics additional training and some paid mental health services.
The ambulance industry says it already pays private EMTs and paramedics to remain reachable during their work breaks in case of an emergency, just like firefighters and police officers. But this long-standing practice was threatened by a 2016 California Supreme Court ruling involving security guards' rights to work breaks. In response to lawsuits that could extend the court ruling to cover EMTs and paramedics, the medical transportation company American Medical Response put up $3.65 million to formCalifornians for Emergency Preparedness and Safety, the sponsor of Prop 11.
Supporters say private EMTs and paramedics respond to three-quarters of the state's 911 calls. If they can't respond because they are on break and legally unreachable, results could be life-threatening. Prop 11 would amend state labor law and head off the prospect of ambulance crews having to turn off their cellphones during meal breaks. Employers would be required to maintain adequate staffing levels to allow for work breaks.
No group has been organized specifically to oppose Prop 11, but the California Teachers Association is against it.
Prop 11 would help the ambulance industry avoid liability for past break-time practices that would become legally protected. If someone on the front lines of the response to a mass shooting, for example, sued over the issue of inadequate training beforehand or mental health treatment afterward, passage of Prop 11 would show voters had approved a certain level of care. Although crews would be paid while on call, the alternative of covering for unreachable crews during meal breaks would be more expensive by an estimated tens of millions of dollars per year, costs that would be passed on to local governments through contracts.
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Data from Cal Access as of 10/30/18.
