Three current and former Amalgamated Bank employees are alleging that top executives at the New York company engaged in racial discrimination and abused company funds.
In a new lawsuit, the current and former employees allege that Amalgamated's executive team, led by President and CEO Priscilla Sims Brown, created a hostile work environment. The plaintiffs — all of whom are Hispanic — claim that they were subject to racial discrimination, offensive comments, harassment and retaliation, including wrongful termination in some cases.
"Amalgamated Bank's … egregious, outrageous, and intentional discriminatory harassing and retaliating actions taken against plaintiffs resulted in monetary damage as well as severe emotional distress," the suit states.
The New York City-based lender bills itself as a "socially-responsible bank," and it reorganized as a public benefit corporation in 2021. Amalgamated's website says it "pushes for fair labor practices, for closing the wealth gap and lending into the clean energy economy of tomorrow designed to meet America's rapidly growing energy demand."
Brown was named as one of
Amalgamated doesn't comment on active litigation, a spokesperson for the $8.3 billion-asset bank said in a prepared statement. The spokesperson added that the bank does not tolerate harassment or discrimination of any kind, and that Amalgamated intends to defend itself against the lawsuit's allegations.
"We take allegations of this nature extremely seriously," the spokesperson wrote. "We intend to defend ourselves vigorously through the appropriate legal channels. Our focus remains on upholding the values that define Amalgamated and providing a safe and inclusive environment for all our employees."
Amalgamated, which has longstanding ties to labor unions and the Democratic Party, is the bank of record for some 12.5% of Federal Election Commission accounts, per an analyst note from Piper Sandler. In 2024, Amalgamated
The plaintiffs' action, filed in a New York state court, requests a judgement that the defendants' actions were illegal, an injunction restraining the defendants from unlawful conduct and monetary damages.
One of the plaintiffs, Jacqueline Rosa, was brought on as Amalgamated's chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer in 2022. Since then, the bank's leaders used discriminatory tactics and tried to force her out of her role, according to the suit.
Rosa alleges that her position was a figurehead role, intended simply to check the DEI box. According to the suit, Amalgamated didn't provide Rosa with adequate resources to execute the bank's DEI strategy, and it made moves that inhibited her work.
The bank's leaders relocated her to a smaller office on a different floor, excluded her from strategic meetings, made racist remarks toward her and about her family and ignored her suggestions about how to expand inclusivity, the plaintiffs allege.
An internship program Rosa had pitched to target DEI candidates was shot down, and her budget for the initiative was eliminated, according to the lawsuit. The plaintiff also alleges that Amalgamated set up a different internship program and subsequently hired family members of several executives as interns.
Additionally, the suit alleges that CEO Brown cut back Rosa's full-time employee headcount in order to hire "her handyman, friend and tenant," Saidu Jalloh. The plaintiffs described that arrangement as a "quid pro quo personal relationship."
In September 2024, on the advice of her therapist and physician, Rosa began a four-month medical leave, during which she made written complaints of discrimination, retaliation and whistleblowing to the bank's board of directors and Brown, the lawsuit states.
Rosa pointed in her complaints to the improper hiring of Jalloh, the personal relationship between Brown and Jalloh and a non-business-related trip to Napa, California taken by some executives, that she alleges was paid for by the bank, according to the lawsuit.
Following her complaints and the end of her medical leave, the bank placed Rosa on paid leave, per the lawsuit. When she returned to work at the end of April, Amalgamated placed her on a performance improvement plan, which she claims included unrealistic expectations and was meant to function "as a setup for termination."
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Another plaintiff, former Amalgamated employee Patricia Velez, claims she was subjected to "a pattern and culture of discriminatory and retaliatory harassment" by bank executives, which culminated with her being wrongfully terminated.
Velez joined the bank in mid-2023 as executive assistant to Amalgamated's chief strategy and administrative officer, Edgar Romney, who's also listed as a defendant. Velez claims that the bank didn't accommodate her medical needs, including clinical anxiety, depression and debilitating migraines.
Velez also alleges that during a Christmas holiday party in 2023, Brown made derogatory, discriminatory comments about her. And at a dinner party, Brown asked her to run errands, including buying alcohol and flowers, and to serve drinks, the suit claims, all tasks Velez says weren't part of her job.
"Brown has learned to control the narrative by hiring individuals who will trade silent obedience to her arbitrary whims and tolerance of her discriminatory, and unlawful misconduct," the suit states, attributing the allegation to Velez.
Velez went on disability leave from late September until December, and then was put on paid leave, which the suit claims was "ostensibly for an investigation" into her complaints.
"The so-called investigation was a sham," the suit says, alleging that an investigator wasn't neutral and told Velez she didn't believe her claims.
Velez was terminated in mid-March, according to the lawsuit.
The final plaintiff, Christopher Muy, worked as an Amalgamated branch manager from 2012 to 2014 before returning to the company in 2019 as a senior account executive in commercial banking. He was "suddenly terminated" in mid-2024 as first vice president, at the time responsible for managing the Northeast region, the suit says.
"The termination was based on Muy's race as an Hispanic male and his protected conduct in speaking up about hostile work conditions at Amalgamated Bank," the suit says.
Muy also claims that he was passed over for promotions and salary increases, including by less-qualified, non-Hispanic candidates, and he faced retaliation for comments he made in the press about Amalgamated being a stressful work environment.
The claim names several other executives, in addition to Brown and Romney, as defendants, including Chief Human Resources Officer Tye Graham, Chief Financial Officer Jason Darby, Chief Operations Officer Sean Searby, Chief Banking Officer Sam Brown, Chief Legal Officer Mandy Tenner and Northeast Regional Director Sabrina Stratton.
