Effort to Recruit Women Firefighters Is 'Multimillion-Dollar Disaster.' Under pressure from politicians to increase the number of women firefighters, the Los Angeles Fire Department has spent considerable amounts of taxpayers' money on recruitment, training and lawsuits, but has almost nothing to show for it, according to a story in LA Weekly that termed the effort a "multimillion-dollar disaster."
The story by reporter Christine Pelisek says the issue is that the job is so physically demanding that most women – and 35 percent of men – cannot pass the training academy tests designed to ensure that firefighters can safely perform their duties. Ms. Pelisek interviews several women, including a former Air Force officer and a college soccer player, who say they encountered no sexual discrimination or "old boys" network, but simply didn't have the physical ability to repeatedly lift 80-pound ladders over their heads or pass other strength tests.
The story found:
· "Los Angeles City Hall – just like Seattle, Miami, San Francisco, San Diego and other major cities, together with state governments – spent millions to recruit, train and house women. Los Angeles outfitted most of its 106 fire stations with costly women's lockers and women's showers." But just 27 women are actually fighting fires in Los Angeles, out of a total of 3,490 firefighters.
· Last year, the department spent $500,000 to recruit women, and hired only eight.
· In March, the department spent $50,000 on a weekend event that resulted in just two women enrolling in the training academy that started in December.
· Taxpayers pay $82,692 to send a single recruit through the 17-week training academy, and recruits who are injured get paid while they recover.
· "Less than 3 percent of city firefighters, fire paramedics, fire administrators and fire investigators are women. Yet according to an audit by the city's personnel department in 2006, that tiny group accounted for 56 percent of the often multimillion-dollar lawsuits against LAFD between 1996 and 2005." These figures include a female firefighter who was awarded a $100,000 settlement after being injured trying to hoist a ladder.
The story notes that much of the pressure to hire women has come from Jackie Goldberg, the former state lawmaker and Los Angeles City Council member who "espoused the popular but untested view that fire departments should be 20 percent female." (Source: LA Weekly, January 23.)
Cal-Taxletter February 1, 2008
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