On Dec. 16, Manhattan U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres issued a preliminary approval of a $29.2 million judgement in a class action racial discrimination suit brought by Fire Department of New York fire protection inspectors and their union against the City of New York in 2020.
According to a press release issued by the union, Local 2507, the litigation revolved around a pay discrepancy for the inspectors, whose workforce is 70% Black or people of color.
That demographic of inspectors, according to the union, make approximately $9,000 less than the majority-white Department of Buildings inspectors.
According to Oren Barzilay, the president of Local 2507, the judgement is the culmination of a decades-long fight for fair pay.
“Our members have been fighting the inequality and mistreatment they receive in the FDNY for decades,” Barzilay, the president of Local 2507, responsible for representing 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.”
Per the agreement, each affected inspector will, on average, receive $35,000, but those who are part of a smaller pay adjustment class will only be paid an average of $5,000.
Inspectors have until Valentine’s Day to object to the settlement or to opt-out of the class action suit.
A final approval hearing is set for March 17, and if that hearing is successful, both groups will receive their payments in Fall 2025.
According to a spokesperson for the City of New York’s Law Department, “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.”
According to Barzilay, the city’s EMS workers are also dealing with a similar pay discrepancy, but they do not receive the same pay scales as firefighters, police officers, and sanitation workers.
“This same pay practice is currently ongoing in our EMS ranks,” Barzilay 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.”
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