FDNY's Boys Club Firehouses Face Change Under New Laws

NEW YORK CITY — Change is coming to where New York City's Bravest change their clothes.

Mayor Eric Adams signed five bills into law Monday that aim to diversify the FDNY, starting with firehouse locker rooms, restrooms and bunks.

The laws — which include a measure to address women firefighters' longstanding calls for reasonable privacy in their workplaces — were hailed by FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh, with a nod to her historic role as the department's first woman commissioner.

"Change and tradition can live side by side," she said. "I know that, because I lived it."

Women and minority firefighters have long criticized FDNY officials' slow steps toward making their ranks reflect the city's diversity and rooting out discrimination.

A federal monitor was installed in 2011 to help ensure diversity within department. But a March 2022 report found only 13 percent of FDNY firefighters who accepted probationary appointments in recent were Black.

One woman firefighter who recently testified that rampant harassment and discrimination goes unchecked within the FDNY is only the latest in a long string of smoke eaters who have said so.

City Council Members crafted the new laws to, in part, address the complaints.

Their bills signed by Adams include a requirement that the FDNY form a plan to hire more non-white and women firefighters. Others require diversity and inclusion training, as well as an annual report detailing complaints filed with the department's Equal Employment Opportunity office.

And Council Member Joann Ariola shepherded a bill to survey permanent firehouse upgrades that would help foster use by a mixed-gender workplace.

She said many women firefighters had directly come to her with concerns.

"They visited my office and said they just don't have the privacy in the facilities that they need in order for locker rooms, for rest areas," she said.

"Where they can, the female firefighters will be afforded the rest area that they need, the locker rooms that they need and the privacy that they need."