Do you remember Nannygate? In 1993, when Bill Clinton put forth two nominees for United States Attorney General and they were both disqualified from the position because they had hired illegal aliens to take care of their kids. Both of these individual’s lives were ruined and they never sought a high profile government position again.
Now, more than two decades later, we have a presidential candidate with a xenophobic message focused on building a wall between our southern neighbors and deporting 11 million undocumented individuals. All while fully being aware that his past is littered with hiring undocumented workers and even today one of his biggest projects has illegals working there.
In 1979, Trump took the lowest of 12 demolition bids and hired Kaszycki & Sons, who had never done a total demolition before but promised to tear down the former Bonwit Teller department store, the future location of Trump Tower, for just $775,000 dollars. Kaszycki hired 15 members of the House Wreckers Union Local 95 as well as 200 non-union men most of which were immigrants from Poland. The Poles were paid a third of what the union members were making. They had no benefits, used sledgehammers instead of power tools, didn’t have hard hats and worked 12 hour days seven days a week. Many of them slept at the demolition site.
Even with what amounted to slave labor, Kaszycki was behind schedule, over budget, and by early 1980 stopped paying the Polish workers. When the workers complained they were met with alleged threats of deportation. So they began to strike and hired John Szabo, a storefront lawyer in Queens to go after the money.
When it finally made it’s way to trial in 1991, Trump claimed no knowledge of the nonunion undocumented workers. The courts heard a different story from former Trump adviser Daniel Sullivan, a labor negotiator for Trump. Daniel Sullivan was previously involved with Trump’s lease agreement for the land adjoining Trump Plaza where Trump drastically overspent $1.1 million dollars on a property Sullivan had bought for just $195K dollars a couple years before. After the deal was done Trump brought Sullivan on as a labor negotiator. And now here of course Sullivan double crossed Trump and called him out for hiring illegals.
Sullivan recalled a conversation for the courts between himself and Donald in June of 1980 where Donald said he was having difficulties and sought his advice regarding some illegal Polish employees on the job. Sullivan told Trump he thought he was nuts and suggested firing them promptly if he had any brains.
The federal court ruled that Trump had engaged in a conspiracy to avoid paying union pension and welfare contributions for the workers and set damages to $325,000 dollars. The case was later settled by negotiation, and the agreement was sealed.
But that wasn’t Trumps only involvement with hiring illegals. In fact, right now, even during his presidential campaign, Trump is using undocumented workers in the construction project to convert Washington, D.C.’s Old Post Office Pavilion into a luxury hotel. Reuters even reviewed Department of Labor data that suggests Trump-owned businesses have tried to gain visas for over one thousand temporary workers from outside the United States since 2000. The forms show these aren’t jobs Americans won’t do. They are positions for waitress, cook, vineyard worker, golf-course superintendent, hotel manager, banquet manager, and maid for Mar A Lago.
So why is it that Trump gets a pass with all these undocumented workers even after Nannygate left careers ruined. And how do we believe a presidential candidate who says one thing and does the exact opposite.