Station Modifications and Gender Discrimination

Today’s Burning Question: My department is an all career medium sized department in the mid-west with 7 firehouses. We recently promoted several engineers, which prompted a series of transfers. In the process a female firefighter (engineer) was denied a transfer to a single engine firehouse because it has no female locker room or restroom facilities. The firehouse has always been an all-male station and the department has publically stated that it needs to remain this way for now in order to avoid any problems due to the lack of female facilities. The department’s plan to renovate the stations had to be placed on hold due to budget constraints.

The female firefighter was advised of the reason that her transfer request was denied, and she promptly filed a grievance with the union. The union went directly to the city’s law department bypassing the fire chief – and I don’t know what was discussed but the previous transfers were summarily changed to accommodate her request to be reassigned to this firehouse.

It seems to me that the fire administration was in a no-win situation, and did everything they could to avoid having to make costly renovations we cannot afford. Can she really force the city to put her in a situation that may then lead to further gender based problems? And can she force the city to renovate a station when it lacks the funds to do so?

Answer: Wow… that is a long question. Do you want the short answers? Yes to the first… and to the second, no but it would sure be advisable.

The long answer – that is going to take some time. First of all, gender based employment discrimination is illegal. I am sure that is no surprise, right? In 2012 that is common sense. What may be surprising to your fire chief and his administration (how did I know your fire chief is male…. call it attorney’s intuition) is that treating a female firefighter differently than a similarly situated male firefighter is discrimination. Good intentions (“we did it for her own good”) really don’t count for much when the solution to possible discrimination is itself discriminatory. My guess is the conversation between the law department and the fire chief focused on that aspect a bit.

If a male engineer of a given level of seniority would have been given an assignment to the station in question, it would constitute gender discrimination to deny the assignment to a female. The fact that the station has no facilities for females is irrelevant… well, maybe irrelevant isn’t the right term – because the fact that the fire station cannot ALREADY accommodate females can be – in and of itself –  evidence of gender discrimination… So there is no need to wait until a female is assigned to the station and has a problem for there to be a problem.

The second part of your question asks about “costly renovations”… there is no requirement that fire stations be retrofitted with separate male and female facilities. In fact, many fire departments have been able to accommodate women simply by adding locks to bathroom doors and requiring the doors to be locked when in use. OK, it is not perfect but it is cheap and certainly is viable as a short term interim measure.  However, if you have had women in your department for very long – these types of problems should have been addressed long ago. There are cases where the failure to make reasonable accommodations for females in the workplace over the course of time have contributed to large verdicts against fire departments for sex discrimination… much larger than the cost of renovations.

BTW… I would like to have been a fly on the wall when the union met with the city lawyers… or even better listened in on the conversation between the city lawyers and the fire chief…