US restaurant fined over Rs 1 crore after hiring fake priest to extract confessions from workers

Employees at a California taqueria chain who met with a “person identified as a priest” to confess sins committed at work were awarded $140,000 (over Rs 1 crore) in damages and back pay from the restaurant’s owner. Thirty-five workers of Taqueria Garibaldi–owned by Che Garibaldi, which has two branches in Sacramento and one in Roseville, will receive the compensation after an investigation by the  US Department of Labor. Che Garibaldi reportedly hired a fake priest to interrogate his staff about their supposed  ‘sins ‘ against the company. The Department of Labor uncovered this spiritual scam during their investigation into the unpaid wages of the employees. The Labor Department of the US claims that Taqueria Garibaldi violated numerous laws, as evidenced by an inquiry and the following civil court lawsuit. Among these violations were the illegal payment of employee tips to managers, the refusal to pay overtime, and the use of a fake priest to investigate alleged employee wrongdoings. During the trial, an employee of Taqueria Garibaldi testified in court that a priest urged the workers to confess their sins against the company. He inquired as to whether they had stolen from the business, arrived late for work, or had any other negative intentions towards their employer, a press release from the Labor Department declared. “As soon as the confession started, I found the conversation to be strange and unlike normal confessions, where I would tell a priest about the sins I wanted to confess,”  told Maria Parra–an employee of Taqueria Garibaldi who fell victim to the scam–to a federal court in a sworn declaration, quoted by New York Post. What the judge ordered In addition to awarding the compensation of $70,000, the judge ordered the restaurant and its owners to pay $70,000 in back wages and $5,000 in civil money penalties to the department owing to the willful nature of their offences. The court also ordered Taqueria Garibaldi to prohibit themselves from interfering in their workers’ legal rights. It further emphasised that the restaurant chain must refrain from obstructing any ongoing departmental investigations and from using discriminatory tactics, threatening employees, or firing them unfairly if they had contact with investigators. Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.