Trump hired undocumented immigrants for $4 an hour for demolition project: Court documents

exGOPer

exGOPer

Pre-MAGA phase of course

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.”

http://www.newsweek.com/trump-undocumented-immigrants-tower-demolish-724845
 
These were the guys removing asbestos without any protection and Trump knew it but it was cheaper. Trump again using a proxy employee (contractor) to lay blame on when he was complicit.

The frustrating thing is there are so many Trump ball lickers who claim he is a great man but have never seen the several documentaries about his shitty behavior made long before any political bias could be argued.

They have made up their minds and they don't want to change as that could be unpleasant. Possibly time to create a list of these.
 
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Some historical data might help here. The federal minimum wage was $3.10 in 1980. Asbestos removal was not really regulated until the late 80's, early 90's. Yes, there were growing concerns during the 70's,but there wasn't any employer/contractor paying much attention. OSHA wasn't even formed until 1971 and I can tell you no one and I mean no one gave two shits about OSHA for a very long time. They were a toothless tiger at the time.
In the mid 80's I was working in industrial repair and construction, had a job going into coal fired power plants repairing valves that were too big to remove, so we repaired them in place. First thing we had to do before breaking them down was remove the asbestos which was used for insulation. We just tore that stuff off by hand. There was no wetting it down, we wore no respirators, did have a simple face mask you could wear if you wanted it but even that was not enforced, there was no effort made to contain the dust, and the dust was everywhere. And this was working for a union contractor and making a hell of a lot more than three bucks an hour. Point of all this is, other than the horseshit wage, Trump wasn't doing anything that everyone else was doing during that time. Regulations for removal of asbestos improved and that's as it should be. I'll give him the appropriate knock for paying slave wages, but the unsafe asbestos removal was business as usual in those days.
 
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CaptainObvious said:
Some historical data might help here. The federal minimum wage was $3.10 in 1980. Asbestos removal was not really regulated until the left 80's, early 90's. Yes, there were growing concerns during the 70's,but there wasn't any employer/contractor paying much attention. OSHA wasn't even formed until 1971 and I can tell you no one and I mean no one gave two shits about OSHA for a very long time. They were a toothless tiger at the time.
In the mid 80's I was working in industrial repair and construction, had a job going into coal fired power plants repairing valves that were too big to remove, so we repaired them in place. First thing we had to do before breaking them down was remove the asbestos which was used for insulation. We just tore that stuff off by hand. There was no wetting it down, we wore no respirators, did have a simple face mask you could wear if you wanted it but even that was not enforced, there was no effort made to contain the dust, and the dust was everywhere. And this was working for a union contractor and making a hell of a lot more than three bucks an hour. Point of all this is, other than the horseshit wage, Trump wasn't doing anything that everyone else was doing during that time. Regulations for removal of asbestos improved and that's as it should be. I'll give him the appropriate knock for paying slave wages, but the unsafe asbestos removal was business as usual in those days.
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I just asked my assistant who lived in NYC, worked for the mayors office off and on from 1979 to 1998 and she says you are completely wrong about the regulations and awareness of asbestos as extremely dangerous (expensive) when in poor condition among contractors in the city.
 
Slartibartfast said:
I just asked my assistant who lived in NYC, worked for the mayors office off and on from 1979 to 1998 and she says you are completely wrong about the regulations and awareness of asbestos as extremely dangerous when in poor condition among contractors in the city.
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Well, you can believe your assistant who worked in an office where everybody believes the regulations are being followed, or you can believe a guy who actually worked in the field doing the work.
 
CaptainObvious said:
Well, you can believe your assistant who worked in an office where everybody believes the regulations are being followed, or you can believe a guy who actually worked in the field doing the work.
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I'll believe her as she has specific knowledge of NYC building at the time. If you were in another part of the country and had a different experience fine.

The point is that the contractor and Trump knew asbestos was dangerous but hired in a gang of non-English speaking Polish guys to save money and because they knew no better. But the contractor and Trump did know the guys were hurting themselves.

This goes to the amorality of the man.
 
Slartibartfast said:
I'll believe her as she has specific knowledge of NYC building at the time. If you were in another part of the country and had a different experience fine.

The point is that the contractor and Trump knew asbestos was dangerous but hired in a gang of non-English speaking Polish guys to save money and because they knew no better. But the contractor and Trump did know the guys were hurting themselves.

This goes to the amorality of the man.
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I'm sure the building codes and all the rules and regulations were right there in writing for all to see. I'm saying there was no enforcement, and you didn't have to be a non English speaking immigrant to not know any better. Those suffering at the time from asbestoses were small in number. The average guy in the field knew nothing of the danger we were being exposed to.
During 1987 and 1988 I worked in every single power plant in the Chicago area. I worked in power plants across Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Iowa. Every job, every single valve was insulated with asbestos. There was never a special crew for removal, we did it ourselves. We just tore it off, disposed of it with the regular other garbage and that was that. Whether Trump knew of the danger or not, I don't know. I'd suspect like all general contractors, he chose to remain willfully ignorant. He paid shit wages to hard working people and turned a profit. He's got lots of company. As a side note, we're a long ways from collusion with Russians. Now it's he was a heartless contractor. There's plenty about Trump in his current day practices which can be debated. This, this is just desperation of people who fear that they're losing the battle against Trump
 
CaptainObvious said:
I'm sure the building codes and all the rules and regulations were right there in writing for all to see. I'm saying there was no enforcement, and you didn't have to be a non English speaking immigrant to not know any better. Those suffering at the time from asbestoses were small in number. The average guy in the field knew nothing of the danger we were being exposed to.
During 1987 and 1988 I worked in every single power plant in the Chicago area. I worked in power plants across Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Iowa. Every job, every single valve was insulated with asbestos. There was never a special crew for removal, we did it ourselves. We just tore it off, disposed of it with the regular other garbage and that was that. Whether Trump knew of the danger or not, I don't know. I'd suspect like all general contractors, he chose to remain willfully ignorant. He paid shit wages to hard working people and turned a profit. He's got lots of company. As a side note, we're a long ways from collusion with Russians. Now it's he was a heartless contractor. There's plenty about Trump in his current day practices which can be debated. This, this is just desperation of people who fear that they're losing the battle against Trump
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Were you in Manhattan?
 
My dad was an electrical and mechanical engineer and built power plants from the early 60s to late 70s. We would get various magazines delivered, engineer's journals etc. and I recall reading about asbestos myself. I very much recall him giving us specific warnings to never pick at or scratch the asbestos sheet fireproofing the door from the garage to the kitchen (or bounce balls of it). That would have been the 70s.

I have no doubt whatsoever that your plant engineers and owners knew they were killing men, as coal mine owners, the gypsum mines, you name it. Your life had a price to them and it was not much.

I recall an article, probably in Popular Mechanics and from the 1970s about the risks to mechanics from brake pad dust. People knew, VERY MANY people knew, if you did not know then maybe have a good think about all the other things you only found out well after the fact.

This is the same with Trump. I did not wake up one day and decide I think he is a mortal danger to western civilization. I had watched a lot of the Apprentice over the years however I chose to take the time to dig deeper. I watched a lot of documentaries, I pieced together a lot of his business history and personal activities.

Dig deeper is all I can say. Even for the first time in your life look not left and right at the other guys for their consensus.
 
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