NY Daily News – August 24, 2015
by Ginger Adams Otis, Jennifer Fermino
A new fire cadet program being developed by the FDNY could help move minorities to the head of the hiring line – but not without objection from the firefighters’ union, the Daily News has learned. Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro will testify in favor of the proposal at a Monday meeting with Department of Citywide Administrative Services officials, sources said.
The program would allow up to 100 participants from city high schools to function as de facto firefighter trainees for two years – and give them a fast-track into the highly-competitive job. Sources said it’s possible the applicants would be chosen by a panel, with a certain percentage of slots set aside for minorities.
The cadets would work roughly 20 hours a week and get paid $14 an hour, sources said.
At the end of the program, those that take the written entrance exam and pass all the physical, background and mental checks would be first to get hired, along with EMS workers who apply to become firefighters.
Outside applicants would have to wait to get selected after them.
Mayor de Blasio and the FDNY committed to the cadet program in March 2014, as part of their settlement of the long-running intentional discrimination suit brought by the Vulcan Society, an association of black firefighters.
The FDNY is “serious about increasing its diversity” and is deeply committed to that goal, a high-ranking source said.
The cadet program would focus on “underrepresented groups who may not have considered firefighting as a career because they do not have friends or relatives in the FDNY,” according to an internal document seen by The News.
At the same time, it would be “open to all potential participants and not include any preference,” the document said.
A similar cadet program in the past was strongly opposed by the city’s fire union – and that opposition hasn’t changed.
The FDNY did away with a paid training part of the cadet program specifically for young minorities – but kept the promotional path for EMS workers to fast-track into the firefighting ranks if they wanted to change careers.
The program became a patronage mill for the FDNY’s well-connected, the unions argued.
“That’s not even up for debate, it’s been a mechanism for people who know the system to get their family members on the job,” said Uniformed Firefighters Association president Steve Cassidy.
That included the former president of the UFA, Kevin Gallagher, who in 2000 was among at least four white FDNY honchos whose sons got into the department through an EMS cadet program meant to boost minorities.
It has remained a gateway for those in the know to get family onto the job, insiders acknowledge.
As recently as 2013, Joseph Cassano, the son of then Fire Commissioner Sal Cassano, created a firestorm when he tweeted racist comments about patients he treated as an EMT – a job he made clear was just a stepping stone for him.
The same nepotism could happen again, argued Cassidy.
“It’s obvious this decision is being done on a political basis, who is going to pick these 100 cadets who will almost certainly be guaranteed a firefighter job? Who picks them, who decides?” said the union leader.
“This is making things worse, not better, and its undermining civil service. It sounds like Tammany Hall,” he added.
The Fire Department and the Vulcan Society whose lawsuit spurred the changes both declined to comment because the proposal is still under review.
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