DATE: Saturday, August 30, 1997             TAG: 9708300880

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LIZ SZABO, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   62 lines

41 EMS WORKERS SUING CHESAPEAKE FOR OVERTIME WAGES THE SUIT CLAIMS THAT THE CITY MISLED THE WORKERS ABOUT HOW MUCH IT OWED THEM.

Forty-one emergency medical services workers are suing the city for $2 million in unpaid overtime wages.

The EMS workers filed suit in U.S. District Court in Norfolk on Friday, alleging that Chesapeake shortchanged them when it paid some EMS workers $362,469 in back pay in 1995.

Chesapeake agreed to compensate the EMS workers after the Department of Labor in 1995 found that the city failed to pay about 60 people time-and-a-half for their overtime work.

The EMS workers include paramedics, cardiac technicians and emergency medical technicians, according to the complaint.

The bulk of EMS personnel accepted the settlement and signed a waiver promising not to file for further damages, according to the complaint. But the lawsuit claims that the employees' civil rights were violated when Chesapeake officials misled them about how much money the city owed them.

Fifteen employees rejected the 1995 offer and filed suit in two separate cases. Those employees won an undisclosed amount of damages from the city, according to the complaint.

Now, the 41 EMS employees who accepted the city's original offer are hoping they can do better by filing their own grievance.

Andrew M. Sacks, the workers' attorney, said EMS personnel deserve fair treatment.

``The EMS employees provide some of the most crucial services that a city is expected to give to its citizens,'' Sacks said.

``Unfortunately, these 41 dedicated employees were denied federally mandated overtime by the city for a number of years. When the city was finally forced into compliance by the Department of Labor, these 41 employees were not fairly paid by the city what they should have received. We hope that this lawsuit will correct this inequity and gain for these employees what they rightly deserve.''

The dispute arose when the Department of Labor ruled that Chesapeake's practice of paying EMS personnel to work 24-hour shifts violated the Fair Labor Standards Act. Today, emergency technicians working in pairs still pull 24-hour shifts in the city's fire stations. But they now receive time-and-a-half.

Chesapeake's city attorney, Ronald S. Hallman, said Chesapeake compensated its workers fairly.

The city could have created a regular eight-hour day, Hallman said, but deferred to the wishes of EMS personnel. Many EMS workers prefer 24-hour shifts, he said, because they spend their free time with family or working other part-time jobs.

Chesapeake's emergency workers aren't the first public servants to file for back pay.

In the past two years, lawsuits for back wages have been filed by such groups as Portsmouth police officers; Norfolk police officers, detectives and K-9 officers; and Newport News police officers. ILLUSTRATION: THE PROBLEM

The dispute arose when the Department of Labor ruled that

Chesapeake's practice of paying EMS personnel to work 24-hour shifts

violated the Fair Labor Standards Act. Today, emergency technicians

working in pairs still pull 24-hour shifts in the city's fire

stations. But they now receive time-and-a-half.

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