“Never rat on your friends …” is one of his most famous lines, but acting legend Robert De Niro is now co-starring with a giant inflatable union protest rat.
The “Goodfellas” star and his partners broke a promise to use union workers to build a sprawling new film studio in Queens — prompting labor activists to set up their symbolic inflatable rat at the site in protest, officials said Friday.
“If De Niro doesn’t care that workers are being exploited, shame on him,” Chaz Rynkiewicz, vice president of Laborers Local 79, told The Post. “We hope he clears this up ASAP.”
The “Taxi Driver” actor and the development firm he’s using, Wildflower LTD, agreed to “seek union labor” during a public review of the $600 million Astoria complex, according to a July 2021 document from the Queens borough president’s office.
But despite the star’s history as a vocal union supporter, the vast majority of construction workers assigned to the seven-story studio were non-union — including plumbers, sheet metal workers and electricians, state Sen. Jessica Ramos said.
“It’s not too much to ask that Mr. De Niro live up to his professed values as a union man. If you want to build in my district, you need to build union,” Ramos said.
