During the Department of Labor’s litigation in federal court, an employee testified that in November 2021 restaurant operator Eduardo Hernandez offered a person identified as a priest to hear confessions during work hours.
“I found the conversation to be strange and unlike normal confessions,” Maria Parra, a server at Taqueria Garibaldi, said in a sworn affidavit attached to the Department of Labor’s lawsuit against her employer, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“He asked if I ever got pulled over for speeding, if I drank alcohol, or if I had stolen anything,” Parra said. “The priest mostly had work-related questions, which I thought was strange.”
According to the employee, the supposed priest urged employees to “get the sins out.” He asked them if they had stolen from their employer, been late for work, or done anything to harm their employer. The purported priest also asked if they had bad intentions toward their employer, the Department of Labor said.
Numerous employees went to confession with the supposed priest. Raquel Alfaro, an investigator with the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division, said the workers felt Hernandez “brought the priest to intimidate them.”
Marc Pilotin, the Department of Labor’s regional solicitor who litigated the case, said that in addition to the restaurant offering a supposed priest, “other employees reported that a manager falsely claimed that immigration issues would be raised by the department’s investigation.”
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