A restaurant owner in California tried to use the literal fear of God to cheat employees in his three different restaurants. He hired a fake priest to approach workers in his restaurants in order to make confessions about work. Things like being late, if they had bad feelings about the owner, had done anything to harm the company, and about stealing supplies. The owner was apparently trying to scapegoat his way out of legal troubles. He brought the fake priest in after the Labor Department started investigating him over labor issues. One worker said the fake priest asked her about specific things like if she ever drank alcohol, was late for work, or if she ever got pulled over for speeding.
In case you’re not Catholic, that’s not how confessions work. You confess what you want to confess. The priest doesn’t have a list where he checks things off. And this was pretty much a giveaway for the people working there. And if being late for work were a sin, I don’t think anyone would make it into heaven.
Last month, the restaurant owner was ordered to pay $140,000 in back pay after he was found to have paid managers with the tip money among other things.