CHANDLER - A dozen employees who were fired by a Chandler Pei Wei restaurant claim it was because of the controversial new immigration law.

The employees tell us they were let go after they attended a rally against SB 1070, but the restaurant says there's more to the story. They apparently skipped out on their scheduled shifts to attend the protest.

Those 12 former employees want their jobs back, and are also asking for back pay and an apology from Pei Wei. They say other employees who didn't show up to work were punished -- not fired -- and they shouldn't have been treated differently.

They're now taking their protest to Pei Wei's front door.

"I thought they were going to support us in one way but they didn't," says Elizabeth Serafin, who was fired. She says she didn't call in May 29 because other workers had asked for the day off but were denied.

Twelve of the store's 30 employees didn't show up for work to march in the anti-SB 1070 protest.

"We were hungry, we were thirsty… it was worse than going to work, we didn't do it for fun!" says Serafin.

Serafin claims that when other employees have missed work in the past, without calling in, they were punished but not fired.

Yvonne Herrera also lost her job. She worked for Pei Wei for 10 years as a cook, without ever taking a sick day, she says.

Pei Wei issued the following statement: "We were disappointed that 12 employees from our Chandler location chose to violate a well-known attendance policy resulting in their termination. When employees chose not to show up for a scheduled shift and chose not to give notice, it causes tremendous disruption to fellow coworkers and impedes our ability to serve our guests."

Serafin says she doesn't regret missing work to march for an issue she feels so strongly about.

'"We know [the immigration law] going to affect our families or even our jobs… there's a lot of people coming from another state. There's a lot of white people doing that, how come we're not doing it for ourselves?"

A local workers union is helping the 12 people who were fired. Protesters say they continue to picket outside of Pei Wei from time to time.