Trump Tower Built with the Sweat of Undocumented Foreign Workers
Donald Trump repeatedly says he will bring jobs back to America. He failed to make an effort to do that when he was building Trump Tower in 1980.
200 demolition workers—nicknamed the Polish Brigade—worked 12-hour shifts, seven days a week with no overtime to knock down the old Bonwit Teller building and make room for Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
According to testimony in a protracted civil suit in federal court, the Polish laborers were paid $5 an hour or less, when they were paid at all. Some went unpaid after the contractor had financial troubles. A few never received even the paltry sum that was owed them for their dirty and hazardous efforts preceding the construction of Trump’s monument to his own wealth.
“They were undocumented and worked ‘off the books,’” Manhattan federal Judge Charles Stewart said of the workers after they became the subject of a 1983 lawsuit. “No records were kept, no Social Security or other taxes were withheld.”
Daily Beast article on Trump Tower
