#FDNY oust union president over coronavirus discontent

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Uniformed Firefighters Association president Gerard Fitzgerald
Matthew McDermott

There’s a five-alarm fire of discontent raging within the rank-and-file of the FDNY.

Firefighters have voted to oust their union president, officials announced this week — with the winner declaring that his supporters were unhappy about its handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Uniformed Firefighters Association head Gerard Fitzgerald, seeking reelection, was defeated in a drubbing from challenger Andrew Asbro in the June vote.

An FDNY marine engineer and former cop, Asbro captured 4,735 or 69 percent of the vote — compared to 2,113 votes or 30 percent for Fitzgerald.

“The members felt that the union leadership should have been more vocal. The members saw inmates and even tigers at the Bronx zoo getting tested for COVID. But firefighters were having difficulty getting testing. The medical office was overwhelmed,” Ansbro told The Post in his first post-election interview.

“This has to be handled differently if there’s another flare-up of COVID-19.”

Another source close to the UFA said Fitzgerald’s more low-key style did not play well during the biggest crisis facing the FDNY since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

During the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic in April, about 13 percent of firefighters were out on virus-related medical leave.

According to the FDNY, 11 members of the department died from the bug — including four EMS members, two members who were in Fleet Services, three fire prevention members and two civilian workers.

On 9/11, 343 members of the FDNY were killed during the attack and at least 225 have subsequently died from 9/11-related toxic exposure after spending time in Ground Zero after the Twin Towers collapsed.

But during his reelection pitch, Fitzgerald boasted of his role in helping win permanent re-authorization last year of the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, which has provided compensation to thousands of first-responders who were sickened from breathing toxic fumes — and the families of those workers who died from their exposure — during the attack.

The city’s acting correction union boss, Elias Husamudeen, also was recently voted out in the first election since the group’s long-term ex-leader, Norman Seabrook, was convicted in a corruption scandal.

Challenger Benny Boscio was elected as the new president of the Correction Officers Benevolent Association in a landslide.

Many government workers are angry or demoralized amid street demonstrators that erupted following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis cops.

Demonization of police officers during protests — and the gutting of the NYPD’s budget — has already triggered a wave of retirements from veteran cops eligible to call it quits.