02:13 PM EST on Saturday, December 11, 2004

By Kerri Richardson/ WHAS 11 News

Louisville -- Emergency service workers in Metro Louisville say merger is making a mess of their paychecks.

They are being charged union dues for a merged e-m-s system that doesn't exist.

The firefighters union says the dues dilemma is a symptom of poor planning nearly two years after the city-county merger. City e-m-s is still part of the city fire department while the old Jefferson County e-m-s is a stand-alone service.

Eventually, the two will join to become an independent third service but emergency workers do not know when.

"And they led me to believe this is going to happen down the road sometime and that we'd be made aware and then this happened and they blindsided us," says Paul Routon, president of Lousville's Firefighters Union Local 345.

City and county e-m-s workers voted to join the teamsters as their union for the new third service. The merger has not happened yet, but Teamster deductions for the new union started this pay period for city e-m-s.

"There's going to be a problem," Routon tells WHAS News. "I think they're putting the cart way in front of the horse There's no plan apparently. That's what we want to know what's the plan."

"We're simply following the wishes of the members," says Chad Carlton, a spokesperson for Mayor Jerry Abramson.

Carlton says the new e-m-s director will begin planning the merger early next year. There is no concrete date for blending the two e-m-s groups yet.

"We hope the union reps if they have some issues with this, we would like to sit down with them, we've made that offer," says Carlton.

"Some of our members have life insurance and investment things. And when they didn't want to share, and tell us the members now we've got to see about their insurance," says Routon.

The firefighters union is suppose to represent the city's e-m-s and paramedics through July. That union's attorneys are working on options to present to the city about the union dues.

But the Mayor's office and the firefighters union say there is no danger that emergency workers will abandon ambulances or refuse to go on medicals runs.

What could happen is the firefighters union could stop allowing city e-m-t's and paramedics to work on ambulances, forcing county e-m-s to operate the ambulances on city runs.