Toward the end of 2024, a federal judge granted preliminary approval for settlement of a $29.9 million class action lawsuit brought against the city by New York City Fire Department (FDNY) fire protection inspectors (FPIs).
The FPIs and their union, the Uniformed EMTs Paramedics & Fire Inspectors Local 2507, had alleged in a case first filed in 2020 that the city created different pay scales for its FPIs –– 70% of whom are people of color –– and its majority white NYC building inspectors (BIs).
At some points, the pay differences amounted to as much as $9,000 annually.
Local 2507 and five individual FPIs — Darryl Chalmers, Darren Connors, Glenn Mendez, James Nova, and Fatima Rosemond — filed suit against the city. Their case represented some 597 FDNY employees.
Chalmers, a now-retired FPI who is one of the lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit, worked for the Fire Department for 32 years. When Chalmers was a union representative, he realized union members were leaving the FDNY to take jobs with the Department of Buildings (DOB). Postings for DOB inspector jobs showed that salaries there were higher.
Yet, FPIs were as qualified as BIs –– and often appeared to have more responsibilities. “I was taken aback,” Chalmers told the Amsterdam News. “Like, why are you paying them more? But then I found out that a lot of the building inspectors were white: there were people of color there, but not as many as there were whites. And because I saw that, I said, ‘Well, that’s probably the reason why they’re paying them more.’”
New York City should have known that the jobs had similar requirements and should be paid the same, the lawsuit claimed. Federal Judge Analisa Torres noted in her opinion about the case that “FPIs and BIs share the same principal duty of conducting field inspections to ensure conformance with the City’s codes and standards. BIs and FPIs are both tasked with enforcing the City’s building codes, though FPIs additionally enforce the City’s fire codes. In the course of field inspections, FPIs and BIs must review the same plans and specifications stored on a shared intranet. FPIs inspect almost all the same building types as BIs, though FPIs only inspect one- and two-family housing as part of joint task forces. Like BIs, FPIs conduct inspections while buildings are under construction or repair, or in response to reported violations –– though FPIs also conduct annual inspections. At the close of inspection, FPIs and BIs are both empowered to issue certificates that, although differently titled, share the same function of allowing occupancy or use of the inspected premises. Finally, FPIs and BIs work on an ‘equal and collaborative footing’ as part of joint task forces.”
Torres also said that “Plaintiffs do note the positions are not ‘identical.’ For instance, FPIs, unlike the majority of BIs, are peace officers, permitting FPIs to issue criminal summonses and court appearance tickets. The two positions have different requirements with respect to working hours, and separate unions. And FPIs experience more physical risks in their work, such as being required to enter buildings where fires were recently extinguished. Plaintiffs contend that such distinctions should militate in favor of FPIs receiving salaries equivalent to, or higher than BIs.”
Oren Barzilay, president of Local 2507, responded to settlement of the lawsuit by stating: “Our members have been fighting the inequality and mistreatment they receive in the FDNY for decades. This settlement for fire inspectors is a step in the right direction of correcting that inequity. We are happy to see some of our members recover damages for what they have lost, but we won’t stop with our efforts to correct pay inequity until the city fixes the underlying discriminatory pay practices that caused this issue for all our members.
“The City chronically violates our members’ rights based on color and gender. This same pay practice is currently ongoing in our EMS ranks. Our members, who risk their lives every day to care for New Yorkers, deserve better than this and should be compensated and treated with the same value as the City’s other first responders.”
In a statement, NYC’s Corporation Counsel told the AmNews, “The City is pleased with the court’s preliminary approval of this settlement. Fire Protection Inspectors play a critical role in keeping residents and businesses safe, and while no admission of wrongdoing is made through this settlement, the City stands firmly against all forms of discrimination, including unintentional bias, as alleged here.”
One important part of the settlement in the Fire Protection Inspector case is the creation of a labor-management committee. The committee will be tasked with addressing the FDNY’s longstanding mistreatment of FPIs and ideally looking for ways to reduce or eliminate such treatment in the future.“There’s no specification about the number of labor representatives on the committee,” said Michael Lieder, a partner at Mehri & Skalet, the law firm representing the FPI plaintiffs. “In terms of management, there’s required to be at least one representative from [the] FDNY and one from [the Office of Labor Relations]. And depending on the topics to be discussed, there would be other agency representatives who would appear if necessary … the first year, there must be at least four meetings, one quarterly, and thereafter, it’s required that there be at least six meetings over the next two years. And the term of the settlement agreement would end after three years. But our hope is that this will become an institutionalized body that both the union and the FPIs on the one side and management on the other recognize as a good thing, so that it will continue and hopefully avoid some of the issues that have arisen over the years.”