THE CHIEF LEADER

Mourn Richard McAllan, Former EMS Union Head
Caustic Critic of City
By ARI PAUL

04/03/09

Former Local 2507 of District Council 37 President Richard McAllan, known for exposing rising response times at the Emergency Medical Service and fighting the 1996 merger with the Fire Department, died March 26 at Columbia University Presbyterian Hospital. He was 58.

He died due to complications from a quadruple bypass heart surgery 10 days prior.

Mr. McAllan joined EMS, then a part of the Health and Hospitals Corporation, in 1973 after speaking with EMS responders in The Bronx while he was working as a part-time cab driver and taking graduate courses in economics at the New School for Social Research. Within a year, he became Local 2507's first secretary-treasurer at time when the city's finances were in dire straits.

Won Presidency on 3rd Try

He ran for president of the local, which represents Paramedics and Emergency Medical Technicians, unsuccessfully in 1981 and 1984 while calling public attention to rapidly rising EMS response times. He was then elected as union president in 1987.

"An idealist, he became a foe of a city bureaucracy, which he didn't feel served the best interests of the public by not adequately funding EMS services," said former Local 2507 officer Alan Saly. "He was a bitter foe of the 1996 takeover of the EMS system by the Fire Department, and served legal papers on every Mayor from Koch to Bloomberg in an effort to strengthen the provision of EMS services in the City of New York." He also forced the city to continue using civil service exams for EMT and Paramedic jobs.

He was a particularly fierce critic of the Giuliani administration and its attempts to contract out ambulance services. He exposed the past sexual transgressions of the director of one large private ambulance company who received access to the city's 911 radio frequency after making major campaign contributions to Rudy Giuliani.

Mr. McAllan grew up near Asbury Park, New Jersey, and lived in the Marble Hill section of Manhattan. He is survived by two brothers, Skitch and Bob, and his mother, Grace.

Funeral services were to be held March 31 at 4:30 p.m. at Holy Spirit Roman Catholic Church in Asbury Park.

'A Tireless Advocate'

"He was a tireless EMS advocate, while active as the president of his union, as an officer of his union, as a retired person, and he fought until his death to try to make this system that we built and grew up with into something that could work," said Local 3621 President Tom Eppinger, who represents EMS officers. "He was certainly a thorn in many people's sides, and that's what you need in the labor movement."

Mr. Eppinger recalled that Mr. McAllan helped him gain further knowledge about the inner workings of EMS.

"He had documents that I didn't have access to that he shared with me," Mr. Eppinger said. "We worked together on a lot of issues."