Ongoing controversy in the FDNY

The latest (but not very new) controversy within the FDNY has been the EEO's "Locker Checking."

Nothing is suppoed to be posted on a locker except the name and number - no flags, no memorials to lost firefighters, etc and the UFA has no jumped into the fray.

Who's "offended" by an AMERICAN FLAG?!

Who's "offended by memorial pictures of fallen firefighters?!

More to follow!

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The Daily News weighed in on this yeaterday (Saturday, January 13, 2007) this way;

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"Somewhere in Commissioner Nick Scoppetta's cabinet resides a dunderhead who thought it a good idea to order firefighters to strip their lockers of all decorations - including American flags, including Mass cards memorializing the fallen.
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"And the dunderhead banished these displays of patriotism and prayer in the middle of labor negotiations, giving Cassidy an opening for mockery that's big enough to accommodate a ladder truck and two pumpers.
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"Say, did you hear the one about the fire commissioner who has such a heart of stone that

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"No? How about the one about the mayor who had such a tin ear he told the firefighters to stop whining
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"Cassidy loves to provoke away from the bargaining table. (His members have been known to insist all of a sudden on stopping at every red light on the way to fires.) And he is riding this for all it's worth, sending 10,000 flag decals to firefighters...

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"...The department last year enacted a regulation barring pornography and other repugnant matter from firehouses, the intent being to preserve a workplace where everyone, including women and minorities, felt comfortable. The reg also stated that lockers must be "maintained free of all material" except a firefighter's name and the locker number.

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"But then a fireman taped porn on his locker and another put up a misogynist curse. So the dunderhead enforced the bare-locker rule in the extreme.
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"The firefighters were disciplined, and that should have ended the matter. And now Scoppetta should do the right thing: Scrap the locker reg, keep the ban on offensive displays and enforce the reg on a case-by-case basis. Simple. No kidding."

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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/487914p-410844c.html

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There are, of course, much bigger things going on within the FDNY, including new written and physical standards for entry level candidates, but for the City of New York to allow itself to come off opposing flags and other patriotic displays as well as memorials to fallen firefighters on FDNY lockers just comes off looking dumb.