Donald Trump and his businesses have failed to pay people for their work despite the mogul’s campaign promise to protect jobs for the working-class should he win the White House in November, according to a number of lawsuits.
USA Today reported Thursday that Trump has been entangled in at least 60 lawsuits, along with more than 200 liens since the 1980s, accusing him of withholding pay.
The workers pursuing charges included 48 waiters, dozens of bartenders, a Florida dishwasher, a plumber, and painters. Trump was also hit with legal action from small businesses, including a New Jersey glass company and a carpet company.
Records from the New Jersey Casino Control Commission in 1990 detailed one project where Trump companies owed $69.5 million to 253 subcontractors who received delayed pay or weren’t paid on time after installing walls, chandeliers, and plumbing in Trump’s Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City.
Trump brushed aside claims of nonpayment, telling USA Today that if a company or contractor he hires does a poor job or does not complete the work, he will withhold full pay.
But the report found multiple cases of Trump rehiring some of those same contractors, noting that employers don’t usually rehire workers who execute a job inadequately.
Trump’s companies have also violated the Fair Labor Standards Act on 24 separate occasions since 2005 after failing to pay employees overtime or minimum wage.
Twenty-one of those violations involved Trump Plaza in Atlantic City while three others were against Trump Mortgage LLC in New York. Both companies are now out of business.
USA Today reported:
Just last month, Trump Miami Resort Management LLC settled with 48 servers at his Miami golf resort over failing to pay overtime for a special event. The settlements averaged about $800 for each worker and as high as $3,000 for one, according to court records. Some workers put in 20-hour days over the 10-day Passover event at Trump National Doral Miami, the lawsuit contends. Trump’s team initially argued a contractor hired the workers, and he wasn’t responsible, and counter-sued the contractor demanding payment. Similar cases have cropped up with Trump’s facilities in California and New York, where hourly workers, bartenders and wait staff have sued with a range of allegations from not letting workers take breaks to not passing along tips to servers. Trump's company settled the California case, and the New York case is pending.
While the cost of the lawsuits or settlements often amounts to little more than pocket change for the billionaire businessman, subcontractors and hourly workers are hit hard by the costs.
The presumptive Republican nominee has also refused to pay professionals, ranging from real estate agents to lawyers, who once sold his properties or defended him in court.
Trump has been entangled in more than 3,500 lawsuits during the past 30 years—a number unprecedented for a presidential nominee.