A cook who worked in the Freshman Union dining hall said yesterday he was fired last week after years of complaining to management about workplace harassment and racial discrimination.

The cook, Darryl Hicks, who also serves as the labor union shop steward representing dining hall employees with grievances, filed complaints against Harvard in December with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination and the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The complaints say that Hicks, who is Black, was harassed on the job and denied promotions because of his race.

Hicks said he was fired in connection with a grievance he filed against another cook who works as his immediate supervisor.

"He's been harassing me for a long time. He's made it clear he doesn't like Blacks," Hicks said in an interview yesterday. Hicks said the other cook gave him an unfair share of the hardest work in the kitchen. Hicks complained, and was suspended for insubordination.

According to Hicks, the manager, assistant manager and three supervisors who run the College's dining hall are all white. Hicks said he and other minorities were discriminated against when it came to getting promoted to "second cook," a supervisory position that is below the rank of the white supervisors.

Hicks also said overtime hours were unfairly distributed to favor Portuguese and white employees over Black and Puerto Rican employees. According to dated records of cook's overtime, Hicks and other Black and Puerto Rican employees were allowed to work less than 40 hours of over- time, while white and Portuguese employees worked between 70 and 180 hours of overtime each in the 15 months from September 1991 and December 1992. The union's contract says that overtime hours must be distributed fairly between employees.

According to Hicks, the discrepancy in overtime hours worked during this period persisted after Hicks met with management officials to try to fix the earlier imbalances.

In interviews last month and yesterday, Hicks described a dining half staff divided sharply by race and treated harshly and unfairly by supervisors.

Of about 60 dining hall workers in the Union, he said, about 45 are Portuguese, he said. When the employees eat before meals, the Portuguese workers. Black workers and white workers all sit at separate tables, he said.

Hicks said employees in the Freshman Union work in "a hostile environment."

At times, that environment may endanger student's health. For instance, five dining hall workers interviewed by The Crimson last month, including Hicks, said they are intimidated when they try to take the sick time they are entitled to in their contract.

"If you're sick, you've got to come in," dining services worker Liz Braga said in an interview last month. Workers said they are threatened by their supervisors and pressured to come to work despite their illnesses.

"Would you prefer someone handling your food that's sneezing and coughing?" Hicks asked. Workers said such practices were against the policies they were taught in dining services training.

A former supervisor who Hicks said harassed him was demoted after serving underwarmed baked stuffed shells to students, according to a demotion report. "This represents totally irresponsible behavior as well as endangering the health of the students that were eating that meal," the letter said.

Five Freshman Union workers said they are forced to cut their breaks short in order to work more and they are often humiliated by supervisors who yell at them in front of students.