A California restaurant allegedly hired a random guy to impersonate a priest
to encourage employees to confess their sins against their employer.
I wish I was making this up, I very much am not.
The incident concerns the company, Che Garibaldi Incorporated, which operates
two Taqueria Garibaldi restaurants in Sacramento and one in Roseville.
[LAUGH] According to Catholic News Agency,
which is not necessarily a source I ever thought I would be citing.
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.
Now Maria Para, a server at Taqueria Garibaldi,
said in a sworn affidavit, I found the conversation to be strange.
And unlike normal confessions, he asked if I ever got pulled over for
speeding, if I drank alcohol, or if I had stolen anything.
The priest mostly had work related questions, which I thought was strange.
According to the employee,
that supposed priest urged employees to get the sins out.
[LAUGH] 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.
Now I'll just pause here and say I was raised Catholic, I went through all
the sacraments except for death, I haven't done that or gotten married.
[LAUGH] But I did go to confession pretty regularly when I was younger.
I never had a priest ask me a single question, I just said, I don't know.
I didn't listen to my mom sometimes, and he was like, all right, do it Our Father,
and you're cured.
I've never had a priest press me to give more information.
So she was absolutely right to be tipped off that something is not
copacetic with what's going on here.
But it wasn't just her, it was several workers who felt that Hernandez had
brought in the priest to intimidate them.
But it wasn't that, it turned out this dude was not even a priest.
[LAUGH] Bryan J Visitacion, Director of Media and Communications for
the Diocese of Sacramento confirmed that this guy was not a priest.
And he said, our own investigation found no evidence of any connection between
the Diocese of Sacramento and the alleged priest in this matter.
While we don't know who the person in question was,
we are completely confident he was not a priest of the Diocese of Sacramento.
The US Department of Labor on June 12 said the use of the supposed priest was among
the most shameless of corrupt actions employers have used against employees.
And that is a damn high bar, okay?
That bar is the sky, [LAUGH] so
to be the most shameless, wow, [LAUGH] wow.
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.
So not only are they bringing forth a fake priest so
that these employees will confess their sins against the company,
they're also insinuating that if they cooperate with the not insinuating,
explicitly saying, if they cooperate with the investigation into this fake priest,
that they might get deported.
That their family might get deported.
It's funny on its face, but it's also deeply sinister.
And I think the most upsetting part for
me is this last bit about what their penalty is.
US Judge William B Shubb, on May 8, ordered Che Garabaldi, LLC and
its operators, Eduardo Hernandez, Hector Manuel Martinez Galindo,
and Alejandro Rodriguez, to pay $70,000 in back wages and
$70,000 in damages to 35 employees.
In addition, the restaurant and
its owners must pay $5,000 in civil penalties to the Department of Labor.
Cenk that is insultingly low, that is an insultingly small amount of money.
>> Yeah, [COUGH] so I don't know how gigantic this company is, but
yes, that is as egregious as it gets.
So the fine should have been commensurate with the crime here.
I mean, this is just mental.
I think that there's two reasons why the priest only asked questions about work.
One is obvious,
cuz he wanted to find out if they were doing something wrong at work.
That was the whole point of the fake priest, right?
But as I was reading the story, I thought, there's probably a second reason.
It's because he didn't want them to confess other things,
like potentially crimes or something about their private lives and their family.
cuz imagine, I mean, if they think he's a real priest and
they're doing a real confession, what if the guy starts getting into,
this is what I did to my wife, and this is what I did to my neighbor?
Don't tell me, don't tell me, don't tell me, [LAUGH] right?
And what if some of them did tell?
Of all the crazy things I've seen companies do,
I get hats off to the anti Che company, the Che Garibaldi company.
>> [LAUGH] >> I mean, they're like, okay,
I don't know if they were trying to rescue the name Che for late stage capitalism,
[LAUGH] but this is one of the most egregious things I've ever seen.
Full blown mental.
>> I didn't even think about that.
I didn't even consider what if someone was like, forgive me Father for I have said
it's been, I don't know, six weeks since my last confession, I killed my neighbor.
[LAUGH] >> It's not impossible, right?
>> That person has to tell the police.
[LAUGH] >> Yeah,
especially cuz they're not a priest, so there's no exception.
And so they must report the crime.
I mean, this is just very poorly thought out.
It is as abusive to your employees as you could possibly imagine.
And look, I'm not a person who believes in confession,
I didn't grow up Catholic, I've always thought it was super weird.
I get it, in the old days, it's basically like the substitute for therapists.
And so it has some value in people venting and etc., but I got news for
you, just randomly telling your sins or
your secrets to a dude that wears a funny outfit isn't going to affect
the mythical creature in the sky in terms of your judgment.
But, hey, that's just me.
And I've never believed that those confessions wouldn't be used against
people.
I'm sure that most of them weren't, I'm sure that most of the priests I hope
cross your fingers, were good guys and they kept things.
But are you telling me that it was never used for Beth?
Are you crazy?
I bet you a giant percentage of it were used by actual priests against folks.
So word to the wise, I'm not big on the confessions part overall.