SACRAMENTO – 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.
During litigation by the U.S. Department of Labor in federal court, an employee of Che Garibaldi Inc., operator of Taqueria Garibaldi, testified that the restaurant offered employees a person identified as a priest to hear confessions during work hours. The employee told the court the priest urged workers to “get the sins out,” and asked employees if they 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.
Ultimately, the employer agreed to a consent judgment, and Judge William B. Shubb in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California ordered Che Garibaldi and owners and operators Eduardo Hernandez, Hector Manual Martinez Galindo and Alejandro Rodriguez to pay $140,000 in back wages and damages to 35 employees. Che Garibaldi Inc. operates two Taqueria Garibaldi restaurants in Sacramento and one in Roseville.
The court’s May 8, 2023, action follows an investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division that found Taqueria Garibaldi denied employees overtime pay for hours over 40 in a workweek, a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. They also...
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