The Chief
Payouts from discrimination class-action suit likely to begin next fall
By Duncan Freeman | December 16, 2024
A federal judge has preliminarily approved a $29.2 million settlement in the class-action racial discrimination suit brought in 2020 by FDNY fire protection inspectors against the city. The inspectors and their union, Local 2507 of District Council 37, argued that the inspectors, at least 70 percent of whom are people of color, have been discriminated against because they make $9,000 less on average than Department of Buildings inspectors, a majority of whom are white.
Manhattan U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres certified the inspectors’ class action complaint in 2022, finding that fire protection inspectors’ jobs are more demanding than DOB inspectors. Last August, the inspectors and the city reached their first proposed settlement, creating two separate classes of fire protection inspectors who would receive different levels of compensation from a settlement; one with those employed by the FDNY between May 1, 2017, to August 31, 2023, called the damages class, and a second, smaller class of those employed after that period, labeled the pay adjustment class.
That settlement was revised in July after Torres insisted that inspectors in the pay adjustment class retain separate counsel from those in the damages class. She granted preliminary approval Nov. 26 following continued negotiations with the union, both classes and the city.
“Our members have been fighting the inequality and mistreatment they receive in the FDNY for decades,” Oren Barzilay, the president of Local 2507 which represents fire protection inspectors and EMS workers, said in a statement. “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.”
Under the agreement, members of the damages class will, on average, receive an award of about $35,000. Members of the smaller pay adjustment class will receive $5,000 on average. The settlement also creates a labor-management committee to discuss fire protection inspector mistreatment.
Members of both classes should receive a notification this month about the settlement’s preliminary approval.
Inspectors will have until Feb. 14 to object to the settlement or ask to opt-out of the class. A final approval hearing will be held March 17. If the settlement gets final approval, members of both classes will start receiving their payouts in the fall.
“The City is pleased with the court’s preliminary approval of this settlement,” a spokesperson for the city’s Law Department said in a statement. “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. “
EMS up next
Barzilay, the Local 2507 leader, argued that the city “chronically” violates his members’ rights based on their race and gender.
“This same pay practice is currently ongoing in our EMS ranks,” the union leader said. “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.”
EMS workers in Local 2507 filed their own class suit against the city alleging pay discrimination on the basis of race in 2022 after the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that FDNY EMS workers had been discriminated against. Torres denied the city’s request to throw out the suit in March, saying that the city’s pay practices, namely paying EMS workers a lower wage in line with civilian city workers, raise “the specter of discrimination.”
EMS workers and inspectors are technically uniformed employees that, their union leaders argue, should be paid the higher, uniformed pattern similar to firefighters, police officers and sanitation workers.
Torres certified the EMS workers’ suit in September, agreeing with the workers’ arguments that the city’s practice of paying them a lower, civilian wage pattern offered “significant proof” that the city operated “under a general policy of discrimination.”
Barzilay is currently negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement for EMS workers and fire protection inspectors he represents and says that the city is once again offering Local 2507 members the lower, civilian wage pattern. The city’s labor negotiators have successfully reached contracts with unions representing 97 percent of the city’s workforce and Barzilay’s members are a significant portion of the 3 percent who remain without a deal.
The local’s last contract expired in June 2022.