Owners of restaurants in northern California have been ordered by Judge William B. Shubb to pay $140,000 after telling employees to confess sins to a supposed priest.
An employee who testified in court said that these restaurant owners told employees to tell a man they identified as a priest if the employees “had stolen from the employer, been late for work, had done anything to harm their employer, or if they had bad intentions toward their employer,” said the U.S. Department of Labor.
This alleged priest told them to “get the sins out,” according to employee testimony during litigation of the case by the U.S. Department of Labor in federal court.
Eduardo Hernandez, Hector Manual Martinez Galindo and Alejandro Rodriguez, owners and operators of Che Garibaldi Inc., agreed to a consent judgment. Che Garibaldi Inc. operates two Taqueria Garibaldi restaurants in Sacramento, Calif., and one in Roseville, Calif.
An investigation by the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division also found that Taqueria Garibaldi denied employees overtime pay for hours over 40 in a workweek, a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Additionally, the investigation uncovered that managers were illegally paid from the employee tip pool and that the employers threatened employees with retaliation and adverse immigration consequences for cooperating with the department.
One worker they believed complained to the department was fired.
“Under oath, an employee of Taqueria Garibaldi explained how the restaurant offered a supposed priest to hear their workplace ‘sins’ while other employees reported that a manager falsely claimed that immigration issues would be raised by the department’s investigation,” said Regional Solicitor of Labor Marc Pilotin in San Francisco. “This employer’s despicable attempts to retaliate against employees were intended to silence workers, obstruct an investigation and prevent the recovery of unpaid wages.”
The restaurateurs will have to pay $70,000 is back wage recovery for 35 employees and an equal amount in liquidated damages. They have also been ordered to pay the Department of Labor $5,000 in civil money penalties “due to the willful nature of their violations.”
Defendants have been permanently forbidden from acting to stop employees from asserting their right and from interfering with any department investigation, or terminate, threaten or discriminate against any employee perceived to have spoken with investigators. Investigators from the Sacramento District Office handled the case.
“Federal wage and hour investigators have seen corrupt employers try all kinds of scams to shortchange workers and to intimidate or retaliate against employees but a northern California restaurant’s attempt to use an alleged priest to get employees to admit workplace ‘sins’ may be among the most shameless,” said the U.S. Department of Labor.
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