[Dov Charney]'s company has a well-deserved reputation as a progressive employer. The average pay at the plant is $12 an hour, about twice the minimum wage. Employees working 32 hours can purchase company- subsidized health insurance for themselves for $8 a week, or about 16% of the total cost; family coverage is unsubsidized, but the company helps workers enroll their dependents in public healthcare programs. Charney provides on-site English lessons for workers and other workplace perks. He says he's planning to hire buses to transport 2,500 workers to downtown rallies on behalf of labor and sound immigration policies on May 1.

It's worth noting that not everybody accepts Charney's image as an unalloyed friend to immigrants. Among them is Mary Nelson, a former sales representative who alleges in a lawsuit that the workplace at American was rife with profanity and suggestiveness that rose to the level of sexual harassment. Her lawyer, Keith A. Fink, says many of the immigrant workers were as appalled as his client, but were powerless to complain or sue. American is fighting the case.

Charney went to prep school in Connecticut and attended Tufts University. After dropping out he started his business in South Carolina, moving it to L.A. in 1987. He's an immigrant himself (from Canada), and like our immigrant governor he's not shy about exploiting that fact to validate his opinion on immigration. But it's safe to say that his ideal immigration policy wouldn't resemble Gov. Schwarzenegger's one bit.