FEMALE FIREFIGHTER ALLEGES HARASSMENT VETERAN LAFD MEMBER FILES COMPLAINT AGAINST EMPLOYER.

Byline: KERRY CAVANAUGH Staff Writer

For months, Los Angeles Fire Capt. Alicia Mathis had been getting increasingly frustrated with the department she loved.

Fire commissioners and the department had pledged to reform a culture that many said fostered discrimination, harassment and retaliation, but Mathis worried the effort would end up like so many before -- lots of talk and little change.

Undecided on whether she wanted to risk her career with a lawsuit, Mathis sought the advice of another woman who had shaken up the status quo: Brenda Berkman.

Berkman sued the New York City Fire Department for discrimination and became one of the first women to join the all-male NYFD in 1980.

Mathis flew to Brooklyn in September for Berkman's last tour of duty before retirement. When Mathis asked Berkman if she had any regrets about suing, the veteran firefighter answered no, adding: ``I did it because it had to be done.''

It was a decisive moment for Mathis.

``It has to be done and the least I can do is pursue this for the women who come after me,'' she said in a recent interview.

A few days later, on Sept. 27, Mathis stood on the steps of City Hall with her husband and two children and announced she was filing a complaint with the state alleging the Los Angeles Fire Department allows gender discrimination, creates a hostile work environment and retaliates against firefighters who speak out.

The complaint is the first step toward filing a class-action lawsuit against the department. And it puts Mathis at the forefront of a problem that officials acknowledge has plagued the LAFD for more than a decade.

``I love my job and I love the work. I have always known that women have a place in any venue they want to work. What I've realized recently is that we can't bring women into the Fire Department in these circumstances,'' said Mathis, a 17-year veteran who also has served as a department spokeswoman and a recruiter over the years.

``I need to know that future women of the Los Angeles Fire Department will not be harmed, and that perpetrators will be punished.''

Mathis' claim comes as the Los Angeles Fire Commission develops a plan to overhaul the department and its discipline system. Fire Chief William Bamattre said last week that even without a lawsuit, the department is committed to fixing the discipline system.

Staff from the Mayor's Office, LAFD and firefighter groups meet weekly with a mediator to solve longstanding human relations problems -- although the firefighters' union recently pulled out of those sessions.

The group has nearly completed plans for an independent professional standards bureau to investigate complaints.

Still, the LAFD is facing nine lawsuits alleging issues of harassment and discrimination within the department. The city has paid more than $4 million in settlements within the last five years for harassment and discrimination cases.

And in the last six weeks, the City Council has voted to spend $3.3 million to settle three cases in which LAFD firefighters who reported sexual and racial harassment on the job were ignored or retaliated against for speaking up.

Attorney Genie Harrison is representing Mathis and a number of other firefighters who have filed lawsuits against the department. She said the city has long refused to fix documented problems with the department's discipline system.

``Every single one of these people have a case because the department didn't do what they were supposed to do 10 years ago,'' Harrison said.

``There has been a history in the department of people getting away with being bad and getting away with doing bad things to subordinates.''

Mathis admits her case against the LAFD isn't the most egregious or the most appalling.

Her claim alleges she was prematurely taken out of her fire station and off a firefighter recruitment project -- a special assignment and mission for her -- and later denied a transfer in retaliation for testifying about discrimination and harassment to the Fire Commission.

When Mathis ran into Bamattre shortly after her transfer, she said he told her: ``See where speaking in front of the Fire Commission will get you?''

In an interview, Bamattre denied making such comments and said he's supported Mathis through her career.

``I never said that anything was the result of her comments she made at Fire Commission,'' he said. ``I would never have said that in any way. I have never transferred anybody as a part of a retaliation.''

He said the department moved Mathis from her station so there would be a female captain overseeing recruit training, which would help make the program more inviting and friendly to women.

Nevertheless, Mathis said, she felt like window dressing designed to hide the problems women face in the department.

Still, she said, her experience seems insignificant compared to sexual assault and permanent injuries that other women and men said they experienced but were too reluctant to talk about.

Mathis joined the LAFD in 1989, six years after the first women were sworn into the department. Standing 6 feet tall, Mathis was strong and had spent summers cutting trails for the California Conservation Corps. With the help of a training program to prepare for the physical demands of the job, she was among five women hired that year out of 1,000 applicants.

The first few years Mathis bounced around a few stations, working hard to excel on the job and win over critics.

She was promoted to inspector and later captain, handling recruitment, fire prevention and public relations along the way.

But she wasn't unscathed. One colleague kissed her on the lips one day, she said. When he later tried to climb into her bed in the firehouse, Mathis said she swore at him and ordered him out of her room. The incident left Mathis shaken, but she was transferring to another station in a few days and decided not to report him.

``I began to think, how many people has he done that to since I left? I let it go and I should have done something,'' she said.

``I was young and I didn't know the rules, but I made a vow to myself that I wasn't going to allow that kind of behavior to continue.''

That story shocked some of her colleagues in the department.

``We have spoken a number of times and she has often said she has never experienced any type of sexual harassment in the department. So when she mentioned someone climbing into bed with her that was news to me also, and I would really encourage her to point that person out,'' Bamattre said, adding that Mathis' case illustrates the department's challenge in handling harassment issues.

``I understand why women would be reluctant to come out depending on when it happened, but at the same time we can't find out and deal with these things when we're not aware of it.''

As a founding member of the Sirens, the women's firefighters union, and a longtime recruiter for the department, Mathis was familiar with the issues women faced on the job. But nearly two years ago she began hearing more troubling stories.

Mathis closely followed the case of firefighter Melissa Kelley, who was trapped under a 200-pound ladder during a drill called ``the humiliator'' while her colleagues were told not to help.

Mathis said she was confident the department's Board of Rights and discipline process would settle the problems. It didn't.

The captain who supervised the drill was charged with jeopardizing the safety of a firefighter and was given a written reprimand by a panel of three battalion chiefs -- the equivalent of a slap on the wrist.

Even Bamattre was upset with the lenient punishment, considering firefighters face a two-day suspension for losing a radio. But under city law he can only reduce, not increase, penalties decided by the department's internal Board of Rights.

Mathis was devastated. ``I believed the department was going to do what it should and it didn't. I thought they would look at this as a safety issue -- she's permanently injured.''

Yet Mathis remains reluctant to move forward with a class-action lawsuit. She hopes her claim and the threat of the lawsuit will force the city to enact a new discipline system where complaints are investigated by an outside, independent authority, and punishments are commensurate with the offenses.

``These incidents will happen. They happen in other workplaces. The real problem is that nothing happens once people report problems. The discipline system fails, and that has been more devastating (for some of the women) than the incidents themselves.''

kerry.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com

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CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Alicia Mathis holds her daughter Maggie's hand outside Los Angeles City Hall, where it was announced that she had filed a complaint with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing against her employer.

(2) Los Angeles Fire Capt. Alicia Mathis

Evan Yee/Staff Photographer