FDNY bosses can be barred from relationship their underlings beneath a brand new, long-overdue coverage on job-related relationships, officers instructed The Submit.
“Managers and supervisors are prohibited from engaging in any romantic or intimate relationship with a subordinate they routinely supervise,” says the directive issued this week.
Below the coverage, such couplings should be disclosed to higher-ups, in order that one of many individuals might be transferred.
If anybody “anticipates” beginning a romantic relationship with a subordinate or somebody prone to come beneath their supervision, “both parties are obligated to confidentially notify the Deputy Commissioner of Human Capital,” it states.
It’s the FDNY’s first such coverage, and it comes because the legion of feminine firefighters has steadily elevated to 177, however nonetheless lower than 2 p.c of the 11,089 complete.
The coverage will even cowl EMS personnel (with 11,089 girls in a pressure of 47,027) and civilian workers (624 lady amongst 2,010).
Violators can be topic to self-discipline, which may embody firing.
The FDNY hopes the brand new coverage cuts down on sexual harassment circumstances.
Of 113 complaints of intercourse harassment within the FDNY over the past 5 years, 22 concerned subordinates towards supervisors, a spokesperson mentioned.
Of these, the division substantiated eight complaints, and two stay beneath investigation.
Among the many scandals, town in 2020 agreed to pay $350,000 to Staten Island EMT Angelina Pivarnick, a star of actuality TV’s “Jersey Shore,” who complained that one supervisor had hounded her for intercourse, and one other groped her.
Enacting the prohibition got here up for dialogue a number of years in the past, whereas Laura Kavanagh served because the FDNY’s first feminine commissioner, however she by no means executed it, sources mentioned.
“This was sitting on the previous commissioner’s desk for a long time, and ultimately she left, never approving it,” an insider instructed The Submit.
One impetus for the ban arose when a drill teacher on the Fireplace Academy began relationship a probie firefighter, and it turned an open secret.
“It made people uncomfortable – but there was no written rule against it,” an official mentioned. The drill teacher was moved to work with different probies.
After Robert Tucker turned fireplace commissioner final August, the difficulty got here up once more after The Submit uncovered explosive allegations that NYPD Chief of Division Jeffrey Maddrey had demanded intercourse from a subordinate in trade for large time beyond regulation.
Fireplace officers realized that the NYPD had enacted a coverage banning sexual relationships between bosses and subordinates in 2022.
That got here shortly after The Submit broke a narrative a few video exhibiting a male supervisor getting a lap dance from an underling at a bar.
In 2022, town paid FDNY paramedic Maria Miranda $205,000 to settle complaints that male co-workers and supervisors – protected by the division’s “boys club” – bombarded her with dick pics and requests for dates, then retaliated when she reported them by forcing her to wash blood-splattered ambulances.
The brand new coverage doesn’t prohibit — however frowns upon — relationships between members of the identical rank who work in the identical unit or facility.
They “are encouraged to request a transfer,” it states.
The FDNY rule is stricter than town’s Equal Employment and Alternative Coverage, which says, “Managers and supervisors are discouraged from engaging in any romantic or sexual relationship with a subordinate they supervise, even when consensual,” however the EEO requires both occasion to tell personnel officers to determine whether or not somebody ought to be moved.
