Report Suggests Steps to Combat Fire Dept. Bias

The Los Angeles Fire Department, embarrassed by recent disclosures of widespread bias in its ranks, should establish a special unit to review discrimination complaints and hire a full-time sexual harassment counselor, a long-awaited city report recommended Tuesday.

The report, drafted by an ad-hoc group of Fire Department personnel, also suggested that the chief publicly pronounce his “zero tolerance” for bias against women and minorities.

If fully adopted, the 230-page report by the so-called human relations development committee would bring about a new, progressive job environment in the department, according to two critics of the department’s personnel practices--Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg and Fire Commissioner Leslie Song Winner.

The report’s sweeping list of recommendations, although welcomed by many, is certain to ignite controversy--both because of longstanding friction over affirmative action and the high cost of recommendations such as new facilities and in-house training programs.

“In concept, the report can be praised--a lot of the things . . . are very desirable,” said Ken Buzzell, president of the United Firefighters of Los Angeles. “But in reality , it is questionable how many of them will be implemented. I mean . . . we are probably talking about millions of dollars.

“This would give us a Rolls Royce [department] if time and money were no object. But right now, we are running on a Yugo budget,” added Buzzell, who noted that the 3,100-member department is being asked to cut 100 positions.

Others said the city must proceed with the recommendations. Whatever the cost, “it will be a lot less than fighting and losing lawsuits,” Winner said.

Goldberg praised the report as a “bang-up job that appears to address all of our major concerns.” Goldberg, as chairwoman of the council’s powerful Personnel Committee, has held numerous hearings on alleged discrimination and harassment within the department.

The document was submitted Tuesday to the Fire Commission for its review. Commissioners, who did not comment Tuesday on the report, are scheduled to meet July 25 to consider adopting all or part of it.

After the document’s release, Assistant Chief Tony Ennis said the department will quickly review the recommendation.

No cost for implementing the recommendations was immediately available for the commission.

Capt. Don Austin, a member of the human relations panel, told the commission that the report outlined a “fair plan, that does not favor any ethnic group or gender.”

The report comes after months of controversy about the department sparked by a Personnel Department audit that found that white males monopolize the Fire Department’s upper echelon posts and that women and minorities have been targeted for sexual and racial harassment at “rookie kill stations,” where efforts were made to pressure them to leave the force.

The Personnel Department audit, released in November, called on Fire Department management to make a “concerted effort . . . to dispel the perception and incidence of nepotism, cronyism and differential application of discipline, differential treatment of women and minorities and a ‘good-old-boy’ syndrome.”

The panel’s findings were disputed by former Fire Chief Donald O. Manning. Manning subsequently resigned in June, complaining that the mayor’s office was trying to gut the department with budget cuts. He has been replaced by acting Chief William Bamattre.

The recommendations made by the panel ranged from the symbolic to the sweeping. They included proposals that the department:

* Set up a human relations unit to investigate discrimination complaints.

* Hire a full-time sexual harassment counselor.

* Hire a full-time affirmative action coordinator.

* Provide diversity training programs to all department personnel.

* Establish permanent separate facilities at Fire Department stations throughout the city for women.

The report urged present and future fire chiefs to issue “written and oral statements reaffirming their zero tolerance of discrimination, harassment and retaliation,” and urged that supervisors be held accountable for “inaction/indifference” in controlling improper actions.

The panel also recommended that gender-based terminology be purged from departmental nomenclature, such as “one-man trucks” and “tillerman.”

Many of the recommendations dealt with the details of hiring and promotion and require changes by the city’s Personnel Department to be fully implemented. But some changes, while seemingly mundane, are intended to help guarantee that objective criteria are used in promotional and entry-level exams.