The International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) is under fire after declining to endorse a candidate in this year’s presidential election.
The union, which represents over 350,000 full-time fire fightersand emergency workers, announced Thursday that the group’s executive board voted by 1.2 percent not to support Vice President Kamala Harris nor former President Donald Trump. It is only the second time that the group has refused to back a Democratic presidential candidate since 1960, the only other time being in 2016 when Hillary Clinton was on the ballot.
“The IAFF Executive Board determined that we are better able to advocate for our members and make progress on the issues that matter to them if we, as a union, are standing shoulder-to-shoulder,” said General President Edward Kelly in a statement. “This decision, which we took very seriously, is the best way to preserve and strengthen our unity.”
The announcement was a major blow to Harris, who had suffered another union setback two weeks ago after the International Brotherhood of Teamsters made a similar decision. But it is also a significant defeat for a female presidential candidate.
IAFF, which was the first union to endorse Joe Biden in 2020, has supported every Democratic candidate since 1960, minus Harris and Clinton—the only two women to ever appear at the top of the ticket for a major political party.
“It’s not a surprise at all—though still disappointing—that [IAFF] would not endorse the candidate who is most pro-union and pro-worker—and it is indeed likely because Kamala Harris is a woman,” Katherine Spillar, the executive director at the Feminist Majority Foundation, a women’s advocacy group, told Newsweek.
Then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton speaks during a rally in 2016, left. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a ‘First In The Nation’ campaign rally in February, right. Inset: IAFF logo. The firefighters union has…
Brendan Smialowski/Brandon Bell/Brynn Anderson/AFP via Getty Images/Getty Images/AP Photos
Firefighting remains one of the most male-dominated workforces in the country, with women accounting for only 9 percent of all firefighters in the country, according to statistics from the 2020 US Fire Department Profile.
Data from Women in Fire, an organization dedicated to championing female leadership and participation within the fire and emergency services, also shows that more than 80 percent of the approximately 90,000 female fighters in the U.S. hold volunteer positions. Of the over 22,000 fire chiefs in the country, only 6 percent are women.
Spillar, who called the industry “one of the most hostile to women who attempt or succeed to joining their ranks,” said it was “no coincidence that it is only in the presidential races that have featured women at the top of the ticket that the fire fighter’s union has failed to endorse.”
Christian F. Nunes, the president of the National Organization for Women, told Newsweek that while the group does not know what went into the IAFF’s decision,