Sushi bar sues California Labor Commissioner in Class Action

Here's a novel way to improve your bottom line:

1. Hire illegal aliens
2. Cheat them out of their wages
3. Lose your wage case
4. Sue the Labor Commissioner for giving illegal aliens a forum for collecting wages
5. Profit.

Sooner or later, we'll find out whether it works. Sushi Sharon filed its lawsuit against the Labor Commissioner as a class action, on behalf of “all California employers who are presently subject to or in the future may be subject to an administrative action before the California labor commissioner in which an award of wages is sought by a person not illegally authorized to work in the United States.”

We're assuming that the double-negative is a typo.

It will be interesting to see how they ascertain such a class. How many employers are going to line up to admit that they hire undocumented workers, entitling them to share in the fruits of the case as "California employers who ... in the future may be subject to an administrative action before the California labor commissioner in which an award of wages is sought by a person not [legally] authorized to work in the United States”?

Comments

[Jon]

Meh. This is silly. But one Deputy Labor Commissioner told me that they target Asian restaurants. If the DLSE engages in such racial profiling, it shouldn't be surprising that a sushi restaurant wants to start some stuff.