A bank teller fired after complaining about an alleged cruel campaign of ethnic taunts, long work hours and no overtime is suing her ex-boss and Chase bank, claiming she became an easy target for longstanding tensions in immigrant-heavy South Richmond Hill.
“You come to the land of opportunity and then you have to face discrimination,” Trinidad native Shivana Persad, 26, told The Post. “It is supposed to be equality for all.”
In her discrimination suit filed in Queens Supreme Court, Persad said Fazeila Mahedo, her boss at the JP Morgan Chase branch on Liberty Avenue in “Little Guyana,” allegedly told her: “Trinidadians are lazy compared to the Guyanese” — and when Persad complained, Mahedo would retort: “Thats a Trinny thing — she can’t take it.”
Persad, who worked at the branch from 2005 to 2009 — when she was transferred and then fired — worked a six-day week, including occasional 12-hour shifts, but was stiffed for more than 400 hours of overtime.
The suit says she took her complaints to human resources, allegedly angering Mehado, who held a meeting with bank workers and then — allegedly glaring at Persad — brushed aside the HR complaint as coming from someone who was “pissed about a recent incident that occurred.”
The manager then allegedly warned that if anyone tried to “bypass [Mahedo] and complained to HR again, [they] should instead pack [their] bags and leave because [they] would be out of a job,” according to the suit.
Mahedo also denied Persad a day off for the Hindu holiday of Diwali — though a Guyanese worker was allowed to take the day off, the suit claimed.
She’s seeking unspecified damages.
Shavad’s lawyer, Matthew Blit, said the case sheds light on tensions among different ethnic communities in Queens all “competing with each other for jobs in this economic climate … [Persad] is the latest victim in this war.”
A lawyer for Chase and Mahedo didn’t return a call for comment.
Additional reporting by Kevin Fasick