Judge Orders New York City To Hire 45 Women Fire Fighters
departments
From the Publishers Desk
A ruling by a federal district court judge brings the New York Fire Department closer to accepting women as fire fighters.
Judge Charles P. Sifton ruled last month that the 1978 physical exam was discriminatory and ordered the city to hire 45 women fire fighters. He acted on a class action suit brought by one of the women applicants in behalf of all 410 women who took the written exam. The 88 women who passed the written examination all failed the physical, and only 16 of them later participated in the mandatory interviews.
The presidents of the two New York City fire department unions, one for fire fighters and the other for fire officers, stated that their unions would appeal the ruling if the city doesn’t.
What might be regarded as a sign of changing times, is the statement by Nicholas Mancuso, president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association:
“It’s not that we’re opposed to females coming on the job, but we don’t want a reduction in standards for entrance to the jobs.”
Sifton had ruled that the physical exam was not sufficiently job-related.
In these two opinions, we see an area of common ground. Examinations should test candidates for their potential to do the job they seek—in this case the job of fire fighter. If the test is properly designed to select those who can do the work required, then the sex of the candidates should not matter.
There are times when we cringe when we see the excesses used by Madison Avenue to promote a product used by or associated with the fire service. Generally it’s done by people who know nothing of the fire service.
In this case, it was a radio ad that introduced the phrase “some joke,” in a script to sell smoke detectors. Fire Fighter Mark J. McLees of the Onondaga Hill, N.Y., Fire Department sent us a copy of the letter he wrote to the manufacturer in which he protested the cavalier approach to fire safety.
His letter got immediate action. The manufacturer responded by saying, “We have taken the smoke detector commercial off the air and you will not hear it again.”
The efforts of Chief Joseph Scanlon and the Lynn, Mass., Fire Department in subduing the conflagration in their city last November with the help of many mutual aid companies was recognized in a United States Senate resolution “expressing our deep appreciation to Lynn Mayor Antonio Marino, Lynn Fire Chief Joseph Scanlon and the 600 fire fighters who joined in this heroic act of service.”
