CEO slur stir
Used N-word, called women ‘slobs,’ axed VP says
TALK ABOUT the boss from hell.
The CEO of a Long Island gear-and-sprockets company spewed the N-word and degraded women in the office — when he wasn’t playing video games during working hours, a new lawsuit claims.
And when a company vice president complained, the bad boss allegedly turned around and canned him.
The VP, Wayne Martin, has filed a wrongful termination suit against the Hicksville-based company, Designatronics Inc., and its president and CEO, Robert Kufner.
Martin, who was vice president of operations, was fired on July 10, after nearly four years on the job.
His lawsuit, filed in Brooklyn Federal Court, alleges Kufner, who like Martin is white, used racial slurs, referred to women as “fat slobs,” touched them “without their consent” and commented on employees’ sexual orientations.
Kufner, who became CEO in mid-2013, also boasted about being protected by the higherups at parent company Dyson, Dyson & Dunn, the suit claims.
Kufner did not return requests for comment, and repeated messages left with Designatronics and with Dyson, Dyson & Dunn were not returned.
Kufner allegedly told the onetime head of human resources that “Man, f---ing n----rs are the worst” in reference to a football game, according to the suit.
“Mr. Kufner made similar remarks to (the former HR head) about black members of the crowd as well,” Martin claimed. “Mr. Kufner invoked the same hateful racial epithet three to four more times in this conversation, and ended by saying that he had to leave the game early because ‘the f---ing n---rs were so horrible.’ ”
Even when Kufner wasn’t insulting people, he was a terrible worker, the lawsuit contends. “He would sit on his computer all day and play shooting games,” Martin told the Daily News.
Martin said he and several other employees repeatedly filed complaints with HR about Kufner, who never changed his ways.
When Kufner was fired in April, Martin thought the complaints paid off. But to the “absolute shock of everyone,” he said, Kufner got his job back on July 10 — and ousted Martin that same day.
Martin was a top contender for CEO.
“As I’m walking out, the HR guy says to me ‘You should sue,’ ” Martin claimed. “It’s disgraceful.”
At 59 years old, Martin says he’s having trouble finding work because of his age. Meanwhile, he has to support his wife and his daughter in college.
“I want to work — it’s not about not working,” Martin said. “It’s hard to find work.”
The manufacturing company opened in 1950 and has about 250 employees, according to its website.