Members of the Public Employees Federation rallied outside the state Department of Financial Services’ Manhattan headquarters Sept. 8, accusing the agency of allowing a yearslong culture of bullying, intimidation and retaliation and calling for an independent investigation into workplace practices.
Though all the speakers at the rally emphasized that such a demonstration was years in the making, PEF president Wayne Spence said the immediate trigger for the rally was a confrontation this summer involving a union field representative who went to DFS to represent a probationary employee during an interrogation.
According to Spence, April Lambert, DFS’s labor relations director, told the union representative she was not allowed to be present and threatened to have her removed by security.
“She has no business being here,” Spence recalled Lambert saying. “The member’s not entitled to representation during an interrogation.”
He said he learned about the incident in a July 14 email and decided the union needed to respond publicly.
Since then, Spence said, PEF has received anonymous messages from DFS employees, including managers, thanking the union for speaking out and alleging that they, too, have experienced bullying.
DFS did not respond to a request for comment.
Leonard Syriaque, a former DFS chief diversity officer, said his experience at the agency reflected the workplace concerns raised by PEF at the Sept. 8 rally.
Syriaque said he joined DFS in April 2024 and was dismissed in March 2026, after serving as chief diversity officer and talent strategist. He said the position was structured so that he reported to human resources, which he argued limited his ability to carry out the job independently.
“This is the only agency that insisted that the chief diversity officer report to HR,” Syriaque told The Chief during the rally. “When you report to HR, there’s a lot of interference.”
Syriaque said he was responsible for diversity initiatives as well as talent recruitment, including employee resource groups, accessibility programs, implicit-bias training and efforts to recruit students from state colleges. But he said proposals he brought forward were repeatedly blocked by HR.
“Anything that I put forward was always stopped,” he said.
He argued the directive undermined the purpose of the position and made it difficult to advance programs intended to improve workplace culture. Syriaque sought to frame diversity and inclusion as issues affecting the entire workforce rather than particular racial or ethnic groups.
“This is not for a Black man. This is not for a Hispanic man. I’m trying to put everybody’s voice in there,” he said.
He also described a broader pattern of tension between employees and HR, saying he knew of other workers who had raised concerns about the agency’s workplace practices.
Syriaque said he raised his concerns with senior leadership but felt they were not adequately addressed. After he was dismissed in March, he said, the agency reposted his position under a different title.
Hesham El-Meligy, a current DFS financial services manager and PEF executive board member, also spoke at the rally. He told The Chief that workplace problems had developed over years of organizational changes, including following the 2011 merger of the state’s banking and insurance regulatory agencies.
El-Meligy criticized travel and telecommuting policies affecting field examiners and said experienced employees have increasingly been pushed aside in favor of outside hires.
“This department is running as a private corporation rather than civil service,” he said.
PEF Regional Coordinator Bernadette O’Connor described her experiences at the rally, emphasizing that employees should be able to perform their jobs without fear of mistreatment.
“Members are here today to work, with dignity and respect,” O’Connor said.
Spence said PEF is seeking to conduct an independent survey of DFS employees and managers, as well as investigations by the governor’s office and State Legislature.
The union also wants investigators to review what Spence described as evidence gathered through years of disputes, including grievances, court records and recordings of workplace interrogations.
Spence cited the case of Deidre Mann, a PEF member whose dispute with DFS, he said, resulted in a settlement of more than $500,000. He characterized the case as involving discrimination and a hostile work environment.
More specifically, he alleged that recordings of employee interrogations show disparities in how employees have been treated based on race and gender, including what he described as less empathy toward Black female employees than toward some white male employees.
Spence said the concerns extend beyond any individual manager, arguing that career officials have remained at the agency through successive commissioners and gubernatorial administrations.
“It’s systematic and systemic,” he said.
The union is not necessarily seeking the immediate firing of any particular manager, Spence said. Instead, he said DFS should take concrete steps to demonstrate that it is seriously investigating the complaints, including potentially placing managers accused of misconduct on administrative leave while allegations are reviewed.
“This is why I’m calling for hearings and a true investigation,” Spence said.
“If they really want to get to the bottom of this and change that toxic culture,” he added, “I suggest they talk to people, do a survey, look at our evidence that we produce.”
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