Sacramento-area restaurant chain ordered not to retaliate against workers in labor case
A federal judge last week ordered the owners and managers at Taqueria Garibaldi restaurants in the Sacramento area not to retaliate against employees cooperating in a labor violations investigation.
The court order was the result of an Aug. 4 stipulation with Taqueria Garibaldi’s owners and one of its managers, who are listed as defendants in a U.S. Department of Labor complaint that alleges they failed to pay proper overtime, kept part of workers’ tips and pressured employees not to cooperate with federal investigators.
The complaint names the Che Garibaldi company, restaurant owners Eduardo Hernandez and Hector Manual Martinez Galindo and Howe Avenue restaurant manager Alejandro Rodriguez, and says the chain employs more than 20 workers but deprived them of earned wages.
Taqueria Garibaldi has restaurants on Howe Avenue near Alta Arden Expressway and on El Camino and Watt avenues in Arden Arcade, and a third eatery in Roseville on Fairway Drive.
After the Department of Labor notified Taqueria Garibaldi restaurant owners that it had evidence of overtime and record-keeping violations, one of the chain’s owners showed up at the Howe Avenue restaurant with a priest, federal officials have alleged in filed court documents.
Hernandez and the priest asked workers if they wanted to take time out of their day to take confession, according to Labor Department officials. Unlike a normal confession, the priest wanted to know if shift leader Maria Parra drank alcohol, had ever stolen anything at work, if she arrived late to work or if she did anything to harm her employer, she recounted in court documents.
Parra was allegedly fired three months later. Federal officials say it was retaliation for her cooperating with the investigation and as intimidation of other employees.
The Department of Labor alleges that investigators discovered the employer threatened employees with retaliation and immigration consequences for cooperating with the litigation.
The U.S. District Court Eastern District of California ordered the restaurant chain’s owners and managers not to “retaliate against, intimidate, attempt to influence or in any way threaten employees for providing information to the department or participating in the litigation as a witness,” the Department of Labor announced in a news release Thursday.
The court also ordered that the employer cannot contact or threaten to contact immigration authorities or inform employees someone else will call authorities. The employer cannot ask about an employee’s immigration status because that employee spoke or was perceived to have spoken with a Department of Labor official or cooperated with the investigation or litigation.
The court also ordered the employer must give the employees certain notices about this lawsuit in meetings about this case, including the allegations that employees are owed back wages and that signing a statement for the employer may adversely affect the employee’s claim for those wages, according to the news release.
This story was originally published August 11, 2022 at 4:12 PM.
