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In a move typical of the sideshow that characterizes California politics, Hollywood attorney Gloria Allred delivered a press conference today, broadcast live on TMZ, with Nikki Diaz Santion, the former housekeeper of California gubernatorial candidate of nine years, asserting that the woman was exploited and mistreated in the former eBay CEO’s employ.
Allred stated that Santion, an undocumented immigrant, was known to be undocumented by Whitman for several years. The Social Security Administration wrote Whitman repeatedly to tell her that Ms. Diaz Santion’s Social Security number did not match, but Whitman reportedly ignored these requests. Allred alleged that Whitman deliberately kept the undocumented worker as her housekeeper to make it easier to exploit her.
Allred said that Whitman gradually raised Diaz Santion’s hours and increased her work responsibilities, including driving trips, while not raising her salary or her hours beyond 15 hours a week. In the most damaging allegation, Allred said that Diaz Santion was told that she could not go on maternity leave without finding her own replacement for her job, a violation of family leave laws. The celebrity attorney planned to file a wage and hour claim for back pay and mileage.
Finally, when Whitman decided to run for Governor, she terminated Diaz Santion, knowing that having an undocumented housekeeper would be a liability in the campaign.
This development will almost certainly overshadow last night’s gubernatorial debate between Whitman and Jerry Brown. Brown has been gaining in the polls as of late, and this incident could harm Whitman in particular among Latino voters.
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Timing is everything.
Whitman’s circling the drain. Despite being bombarded with commercials, the #1 thing voters know about her is that she’s a billionaire. She’s not charismatic at all. Brown cleaned the floor with her in the debate. Now she has a nanny problem? She’s done.
The irony is that, if she had paid taxes and SS for the housekeeper, and gave her a generous severance, (say, a month’s pay for every year worked — for eMeg, a blip in her monthly household budget), there would be no story to report. You know, acted like another human being just trying to do the right thing. But no, she has to go with her aristocratic instincts. First, in not checking the housekeeper’s SSN when she hired her (not planning to pay SS, why check?), and then throwing a longtime & loyal employee overboard without a life preserver. Thereby reminding every voter in the state who labors away at a menial job of the kind of treatment they can expect from her Administration.
Keep up the big spending Meg — it’s going to be a real joy seeing it flushed down the toilet when you concede to Jerry.
aristocratic………..she is trash with zero noblesse oblige
n o
, it has been used recently primarily to refer to public responsibilities of the rich, famous and powerful, notably to provide good examples of behaviour or to exceed minimal standards of decency.