When ladies have been first employed by the New York Hearth Division within the early Eighties, no pink carpet led to the pink doorways.
As Suzanne Daley reported in The Instances, one pioneer feminine firefighter recounted that the boys in her firm “slammed doorways in her face, swore at her, put firecrackers underneath her mattress and as soon as tried to lock her in a kitchen they’d crammed with tear gasoline.” Some ladies discovered urine of their boots. One was attacked with a knife.
No knives have been drawn since Laura Kavanagh, 40, turned the town’s first feminine fireplace commissioner in October, however fees of backstabbing have flown.
Three months into her administration, she confronted a mutiny by a number of of her male workers chiefs, giving one retired feminine firefighter I talked to flashbacks to experiences of these early days of vitriol. Progress has been made, however the paternal, parochial Nineteen Fifties mind-set has by no means actually gone away within the overwhelmingly white, male, tradition-bound hierarchy, some feminine firefighters informed me.
Sitting in her workplace in Brooklyn, sporting a flame-red jacket and black pants, Kavanagh stated that rising up in a “giant and complex” clan and operating a division with family cascading by means of the ranks make the turmoil she faces really feel like a household feud, in a household with a life-or-death mission.
“It suits with my circle of relatives, for higher or worse,” she stated. “Typically there’s yelling and generally it’s not straightforward.”
A San Francisco native — her mom was a trainer, her father labored on the cellphone firm — Kavanagh has an Irish-Italian background, mirroring her division’s conventional DNA. She has a small Celtic knot tattoo on her left wrist peeking out from underneath her white Apple Watch band.
If Hollywood filmmakers have been seeking to forged a big-city feminine fireplace commissioner, they might conjure Kavanagh — tall, athletic, with blue eyes, an auburn mane and a cleft in her chin.
Kavanagh doesn’t blame misogyny for the firestorm. She stated that among the males simply want to regulate to how she “seems to be and appears” — actually, the commissioner’s SUV has by no means had an additional pair of excessive heels within the again seat earlier than. “Change is simply arduous, interval,” she stated.
However her supporters assume in any other case.
“She disrupted historic gender roles,” stated Letitia James, the New York legal professional normal. “She did it by tearing off the Band-Assist, and historic wounds have been uncovered.”
Her critics, nonetheless, see a younger commissioner in over her head, stepping on toes with out pondering of the results.
Despite the fact that she has been at fireplace headquarters since 2014, as first deputy commissioner since 2018 and performing commissioner since February 2022, she is treading treacherous floor, with fault strains of sophistication, intercourse and age in a division with over 17,000 staff and a $2 billion finances.
The drama started on Feb. 3, when Kavanagh delegated to her chief of workers the demotion of three three-star workers chiefs working at headquarters — Michael Gala, Fred Schaaf and Joseph Jardin — whereas she was in a gathering with the remainder of her management crew. (That the chief of workers, Luis Martinez, is an ex-cop rankled many within the Hearth Division, given the storied rivalry between the companies.) The three males, of their early 60s — they have been within the group of 27 workers chiefs at headquarters — are deputy chiefs now, again within the area.
Kavanagh didn’t get into element in regards to the causes for the demotions, though an aide stated the commissioner wished to shake issues up and ship a message that she didn’t wish to play “the identical outdated sport.”
Regardless of Kavanagh’s reticence, there could also be some clues to what that sport is. Gala wrote a public letter in 2011 complaining that “the frenzy to diversify” the division would trigger “future ruination.” The New York Every day Information reported that as Queens borough commander, Schaaf resisted disciplining some firefighters after allegations of racism at one in all his firehouses. The paper additionally reported that Jardin was the topic of a collection of complaints with the town’s Workplace of Equal Employment Alternative over his administration fashion.
Days after the demotions, John Hodgens, the five-star chief of division and its highest-ranking uniformed official, and John Esposito, the chief of fireside operations, requested to be demoted to Civil Service ranks.
Allies of Hodgens and Esposito — union representatives stated the 2 males declined to be interviewed — informed me the chiefs felt humiliated as a result of they realized in regards to the demotions solely when one of many demoted males texted somebody on the massive assembly with Kavanagh, after she had left.
Hodgens, particularly, is a shocking adversary, since he had at instances supported Kavanagh’s quest for the highest job, and Kavanagh promoted each males to their present posts.
Additional inflaming issues, somebody taped the assembly and leaked it to The Every day Information — a breach of division protocols that’s being investigated. On the tape, the paper reported, Kavanagh might be heard complaining that she had gotten little response to her requests for modern ideas, whereas chiefs might be heard asking about trip time and the usage of private vehicles — making them appear to be entitled crybabies and the commissioner appear to be a forward-looking chief. A lawsuit from three chiefs, two of whom Kavanagh demoted, accuses her camp of leaking the tape.
In the meantime, seven workers chiefs have joined Hodgens and Esposito in solidarity, asking to be demoted. Kavanagh, making an attempt to regular the ship, has not accredited any of the requests.
James McCarthy, the president of the Uniformed Hearth Officers Affiliation, which represents officers above the rank and file, stated the rebellion just isn’t waning. He stated the chiefs and deputy chiefs concerned don’t see themselves as mutineers however extra as principled resisters, “like Archibald Cox” throughout Watergate.
McCarthy known as it “disingenuous” of Kavanagh’s supporters to label her critics within the division as misogynists resistant to vary, on condition that his union supported a Black lady, Terryl Brown, the division’s chief authorized counsel, for the commissioner job. Kavanagh ousted Brown a few month in the past.
Kavanagh believes she has assist among the many rank-and-file firefighters and emergency medical technicians.
And people I spoke to exterior the highest ranks had little endurance for the chiefs’ complaints. “A cleaning soap opera in a crystal palace,” an Emergency Medical Companies union official known as the controversy. “Chiefs sucking their thumbs and stamping their ft,” a firefighter stated.
Kavanagh rejected the chiefs’ claims that the general public, and firefighters, are in jeopardy with out their a long time of expertise. These claims didn’t appear to be true when a name got here in a few constructing collapse in Brooklyn whereas she and I visited Rescue 1 in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday. Firefighters piled right into a truck within the blink of an eye fixed.
“We don’t get to choose the emergency or the calamity. We simply reply — that’s the secret,” stated Dellon Morgan, a Brooklyn fireplace captain and former president of the Vulcan Society, a company of Black firefighters. He finds the opposition to Kavanagh ego-driven: “Each step is being challenged, even the smallest strikes, and it’s simply not crucial.”
Bertha Lewis, the pinnacle of the Black Institute, a New York-based coverage group, stated she had warned the commissioner that the outdated guard would come for her in a “Pay attention, little lady, how dare you query us?” second and Kavanagh replied, “Allow them to come.”
Kavanagh’s buddies say the rebellion has upset her, however her reserved method cloaks that. She informed me that she has a “thick pores and skin” and doesn’t let issues like boos at a promotion ceremony in February have an effect on her.
“I got here right here to do the correct factor by the division and it’s going to require some arduous selections and a few pushing,” she stated. “It is going to be within the rearview mirror sometime.”
After I requested the explanation for the trio of demotions that sparked a revolt, she stated she had “to easily get our head depend the place it wanted to be.”
However clearly it was about greater than head depend; it was about drawing a line. A few of Kavanagh’s supporters surprise if the transfer was too precipitous. Others, nonetheless, observe that subtlety has been tried earlier than, and chiefs have stubbornly resisted.
In a liberal metropolis of nice range, the division is 73 p.c white males, down from 92 p.c 20 years in the past. Out of 352 battalion chiefs, 344 are white; one is a lady. (The Police Division is 42 p.c white and 80 p.c male.)
If the rebels thought they might pressure Mayor Eric Adams to dump Kavanagh by making it appear as if the division was spiraling uncontrolled and that public security was in peril, they appear to have misinterpret the mayor, who has put ladies accountable for all three uniformed departments — police, fireplace and sanitation — and who is understood for sticking along with his individuals.
Adams made a present of assist by strolling along with his commissioner — in addition to Hodgens — within the St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
“Commissioner Kavanagh has promoted a tradition of management, accountability and efficiency throughout the F.D.N.Y.,” the mayor stated in a press release to me. “She has my full assist.”
At their aspect on St. Patrick’s Day was Joe Pfeifer, who left a gig at Columbia College to turn into Kavanagh’s prime deputy. Pfeifer was the primary senior fireplace chief to reach at floor zero on Sept. 11. His youthful brother, Kevin, a lieutenant with Engine Firm 33 within the Bowery, died within the north tower after Joe Pfeifer ordered him and a whole bunch of different firefighters up the steps to rescue anybody they might discover.
I Zoomed with Chief Pfeifer on his first morning again within the division, whereas colleagues lined up exterior his workplace to see him.
Requested if this firestorm was merely a case of misogyny, Pfeifer stated different commissioners had made main workers adjustments, however none obtained the pushback Kavanagh did. “I’ve by no means skilled something like that in my whole profession,” he stated.
Pfeifer informed me that he didn’t see how any of the mutineers could possibly be a part of the crew going ahead. “I believe individuals can disagree,” he stated, “however they’ll’t exit on their very own and make their very own guidelines. I believe each fireplace, each main medical emergency, we maintain to that, that there’s anyone in cost; we name it an incident commander. Effectively, in an company, we name that particular person the commissioner.”
“What I used to be informed by a battalion chief is that what occurred lessened their authority within the area,” he stated. If Hodgens and Esposito might do what they did at headquarters, he added, “why not a whole firehouse says, I wish to be transferred?”
Though Hodgens and Esposito declare they weren’t consulted in regards to the demotions, Pfeifer stated that Kavanagh did discuss to the 2 chiefs about shaking up the management crew.
“You talk about issues with individuals forward of time,” Pfeifer stated, “and then you definitely take motion once you assume it’s crucial.”
He stated contemporary blood within the higher ranks will invigorate the division. “There’s a whole lot of very skilled individuals within the area that we are able to convey up, which will even have extra expertise than among the those who wish to self-demote.”
Kavanagh was extra opaque. “I’d simply say that the best way ahead is no matter is greatest for all the division,” she stated, including: “I wish to dispel any notion that it’s, for me, private. I put my private emotions apart after I stroll in right here.”
Two lawsuits filed by chiefs, nonetheless, appear private. The primary, dismissed out of hand by U.S. District Court docket Choose Rachel Kovner, claimed their demotions precipitated “a grave danger” to the town and firefighters. A second swimsuit accused the commissioner of ageism.
Regina Wilson, a firefighter who’s president of the Vulcan Society, stated she was not sorry to see the three chiefs demoted. “Black firefighters usually are not crying no river for them,” she stated.
Extra strikingly, she thinks Kavanagh mustn’t have gotten the highest job within the first place. In her opinion, Kavanagh, as deputy commissioner and performing commissioner, didn’t do sufficient to diversify the division or make firehouses much less hostile towards ladies and Black firefighters.
Wilson stated “we haven’t seen the needle transfer” in the best way they need, regardless of a settlement of a lawsuit introduced by the Division of Justice underneath George W. Bush in 2007 that arrange a court-appointed monitor and ordered the division to pay practically $100 million to ladies and members of minorities who have been stymied of their hope of being employed.
“You’re coming into work and also you already obtained to just remember to don’t die that day,” she stated. “Now you bought to return into work with the mind-set that you just’re preventing towards ridicule, racism and sexism.”
Does Kavanagh agree that racism continues to be an issue within the division?
“Sure, very a lot so,” she stated.
Has it diversified too slowly?
“I believe you’re seeing that range come onto the job,” she stated. “It is going to be a very long time till it’s percolated by means of all the ranks. That’s only a actuality of Civil Service.”
Curiously, given the opposition she has confronted in her 5 months on the job, her thesis for her grasp’s of public administration at Columbia, titled “The Poisoned Water-Cooler: Office Gossip as a Lever of Energy,” examined the position of gossip and rumor in organizations which might be clinging to the established order and the dangerous impact that has on feminine leaders.
It was at Columbia, which hosts the F.D.N.Y. Officers Administration Institute, that she met a few of her closest advisers, whom her detractors name “the Columbia cabal,” saying that her interior circle isolates her an excessive amount of from the chiefs.
One other supply of disdain from her opponents has been her background in politics. She labored on the 2012 Obama marketing campaign in Pennsylvania after which Invoice de Blasio’s mayoral marketing campaign. She served as a particular assistant to Mayor de Blasio earlier than becoming a member of the division within the workplace that oversaw the press store.
“I don’t know actually what they imply,” Kavanagh stated, after I famous that individuals within the division seek advice from her “P.R.” background. “That doesn’t describe the profession I had working for unions and elected officers and nonprofits and doing grass-roots organizing and actually understanding tips on how to run operations and to leap into organizations and say: ‘Right here’s how one can make your group higher. Right here’s how one can obtain this purpose.’ This feels just like the coaching that really all executives have not directly, form or type. Mine simply occurs to have been in politics.”
Regardless of that background, Kavanagh stated the toughest a part of her job is going through the general public. She employed a coach and took a public talking class at Columbia to get extra snug.
“I do know individuals say they’re shy,” she stated. “However I used to be intensely shy.” On Instagram, she shared the story of flunking her interview for kindergarten admission as a result of she refused to talk. “I don’t wish to converse for the sake of talking,” she informed me. “I nonetheless don’t relish it.”
As the primary lady in cost, she stated, she will get “a whole lot of totally different recommendation like, ‘Oh, you have to be powerful’ or ‘You need to by no means present your feeling.’ I simply assume that’s not proper.” She defined that “there are actually terrible moments within the Hearth Division. We misplaced those who we love within the line of obligation. We go to tragic occasions, the place individuals have died. I really feel fairly snug displaying my feelings in that second.”
Working in a hypermasculine tradition, she needs to eliminate the poisonous component that results in bullying and cruelty. “Bullying of any sort is totally off the desk,” she stated bluntly within the leaked tape of her assembly with the workers chiefs. “I can’t tolerate it.”
However she additionally sees the necessity to nurture the alpha streak, amongst female and male firefighters, that makes them keen to leap into a hearth and dangle out of Twentieth-story home windows.
Her broader targets are rising security and lowering fireplace deaths, eliminating risks of lithium ion batteries for electrical bikes and getting state-of-the-art respirator expertise.
In her free time, Kavanagh likes to look at campy horror films, a trait she obtained from her mom. She additionally likes to pop into firehouses, generally throughout a run on a weekend, and tries to coach with totally different items, just like the dive crew, as a result of she’s a swimmer, or a unit that practices rappelling off a firehouse. Married as soon as, she says she’s now “single, however not obtainable,” and has no youngsters.
Exterior her workplace is a wall filled with framed images of all of New York’s fireplace commissioners. There are 33 males, the earliest bearded and mustachioed from a century and a half in the past — and on the very finish, a smiling Laura Kavanagh.
“I really like this place,” she stated. “The mission is price preventing for and nothing can change my thoughts about that.”
Supply: NY Times
