By JODI SOKOLOWSKI
Buffalo Law Journal

Additional incidents of race-based harassment have been reported at a Lackawanna steel plant, despite the fact that court-ordered anti-discrimination training was conducted twice last year.

Judith Bilte-koff, of counsel to Brown & Kelly LLP, is representing Elijah Turley, an African-American steelworker who filed a discrimination lawsuit in late 2006 against his employer, ISG Lackawanna Inc.

On Dec. 3, 2007, a union representative reported that a stuffed monkey with a rope around its neck was tied to the sideview mirror on Turley's car while it was parked in the plant's parking lot, according to Biltekoff.

"I find it astounding that in this day and age, and after everything that has happened at the Lackawanna steel plant, something like that could still occur," she said. "Needless to say, the training was not effective."

An attorney for ISG said the company responded "promptly and effectively" when Turley complained, hiring an outside investigator following this latest incident of alleged harassment.

"However, it appears that even the third-party investigator will not be able to determine the person responsible for that incident," Phillips Lytle LLP partner James Grasso said in a statement provided by e-mail. He said that plant employees, including Turley, "have acted to mislead the company in its investigation efforts" by refusing to name any conspirators responsible for the incidents.

Discovery and depositions continue on the case, Elijah Turley v. ISG Lackawanna Inc., filed Dec. 6, 2006, in U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York. Hon. William Skretny referred the case to mediation, and a session was held Dec. 5.

The outcome of a Friday settlement conference before Magistrate Judge Hon. H. Kenneth Schroeder to determine whether the parties could resolve the matter without continued litigation was not known at press time.

Claims and counterclaims

Turley, employed at ISG Lackawanna since 1995, claims that co-workers addressed him using offensive terms including "nigger" and "boy" and taunted him through graffiti and signs in the workplace. The defendants include Thomas Jaworski, Gerald Marchand and Larry Sampsell, all managers at ISG.

His claim that the company should be held responsible for a hostile work environment, Grasso said, "lacks merit."

"Regarding his claims of harassment by his manager, the evidence shows that plaintiff was not singled out for differential treatment because of his race," the lawyer's statement read.

Turley had a friendly relationship with his co-workers and helped foster and conceal conduct of the kind he now complains about and regularly used racial terms in the workplace when referring to himself and others, he said.

"(Just because) the banter was common-place in the steel mill does not make it above the law," Biltekoff said in response.

She said that if there is a code of silence among the United Steelworkers members, "apparently it only applies if you're Caucasian."

One co-worker deposed for the case "tried to imply that (Turley) hung the monkey himself," Biltekoff said, and another described the stuffed animal as "a cute little monkey."

"It's like a whole different country there," she said.