Blaz pressed on unlimited leave for 9/11 responders

More than 17 years after the Sept. 11 attacks, EMTs sickened at the World Trade Center are still fighting for unlimited sick time due to resistance, they say, from Mayor de Blasio.

Lawmakers and union leaders ripped de Blasio Monday for his opposition to legislation that would expand unlimited sick time — already available to NYPD officers and FDNY firefighters, and to first responders from outside the city — to another about 4,000 city workers, including FDNY EMS workers.

“My message is simple: We respected you, we rescued you. Now we need to be rescued,” Oren Barzilay, president of EMS union Local 2507 said at a City Hall Park press conference.

Vincent Variale, president of the Uniformed EMS Officers Union, Local 3621, said EMS workers with cancer have been unable to stay home sick “because they don’t have the sick time, and if they don’t come to work they’re put offline and they lose their medical benefits and pay.”

“Here we are 17 years later looking at members who are sick and dying, looking for a benefit to give them the decency of either having time off to get better or to die with dignity — and this mayor, Mayor de Blasio, who preaches and says he is for fairness and equality, has chosen to let these EMS workers die without dignity.”

De Blasio has opposed to a state bill that would extend unlimited sick time to EMS workers, members of the Transport Workers Union and other city employees who became ill working on the 9/ 11 response.

In a legislative memo to the state Assembly, City Hall said the bill would have “an unknown Lcost to the city,” and his administration has argued each union should negotiate its sick time policy for 9/11 responders.