An Irish-American city Department of Transportation worker claims his Italian-American bosses and union leaders gave him the shaft after a gruesome workplace injury — because he wasn’t a paisan.
Keith Lane worked for DOT since 1998 as a motor grader operator, using heavy machinery to prepare road surfaces for repairs, but said he was continually ignored for transfers to higher paying gigs.
The Italian supervisors in DOT and SEIU Local 246 took care of their own, Lane, 62, contended in a $3 million Brooklyn Federal Court lawsuit.
The Queens man said he was promised a chance at a higher paying slot on the night shift, only to be “passed over for the job after the Italian-controlled DOT conspired with the Italian-controlled Local 246 union to implant a completely unqualified Italian person in the job,” according to the lawsuit.
The situation hit a boiling point after Lane was seriously injured in an on-the-job car crash, when the vehicle he was driving was T-boned by another worker who apparently fell asleep at the wheel, he said.
The June 17, 2020 incident left Lane with head trauma, fractured bones “from head to toe” and “shards of glass ingrained in his face,” he said in the litigation against DOT and the union.
Despite undergoing “protracted hospitalization that was followed by a plethora of surgeries,” Lane contends no one at the DOT or in his union advocated for him after the crash — and lists in court papers numerous examples of Italian co-workers who got such support.
“When the non-Italian plaintiff asked his Italian-controlled union to advocate on his behalf for a similar extension provided to plaintiff’s Italian co-workers or special accommodation, the union refused,” he alleged in the litigation.
“The DOT stopped paying Mr. Lane’s salary and the DOT and his union collectively continued to pressure, threaten, and intimidate Keith Lane into a forced retirement,” Lane said in the legal papers.
The city Law Department said it had no record of Lane requesting an accommodation or complaining of discrimination.
“There is no room for bias of any kind in city agencies. We will carefully review these allegations,” a Law Department spokesman said.
