President Trump hired undocumented immigrants for demolition project.
Set against the backdrop of everything else he has done since coming into office, digging up details of a near-40 year old court case against Donald Trump seems pointless and futile. But there is a bitter irony to this specific court case, given Trump’s apparent adoration for immigrants.
President Donald Trump hired hundreds of undocumented Polish immigrants to demolish a New York City building in 1980 and paid them as little as $4 an hour without providing proper safety equipment to do the job, court documents show.
The workers and their contractor, William Kaszycki of Kaszycki & Sons, sued Trump for unfair labor practices in 1983. After litigation dragged on for 15 years, Trump ultimately paid $1.375 million to settle the case.
“We worked in horrid, terrible conditions,” Wojciech Kozak, one of the undocumented Polish workers at the demolition site, told the Times. “We were frightened illegal immigrants and did not know enough about our rights.”
The settlement was kept under seal for nearly two decades. But last week, in response to a motion filed by Time Inc. and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, U.S. District Court Judge Loretta A. Preska ordered the documents be made public.
Trump had sought to demolish the famed Bonwit Teller building on Fifth Avenue to make way for his 58-story Trump Tower.
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