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“At least 60 lawsuits, along with hundreds of liens, judgments and other government filings reviewed by the USA Today Network, document people who have accused Trump and his businesses of failing to pay them for their work,” the newspaper wrote Friday. “Among them: a dishwasher in Florida. A glass company in New Jersey. A carpet company. A plumber. Painters. Forty-eight waiters. Dozens of bartenders and other hourly workers at his resorts and clubs, coast to coast. Real estate brokers who sold his properties. And, ironically, several law firms that once represented him in these suits and others.”
USA Today sums up Donald Trump as an businessman who repeatedly doesn't pay his bills and relentlessly fights paying in court. It wrote, “The actions in total paint a portrait of Trump’s sprawling organization frequently failing to pay small businesses and individuals, then sometimes tying them up in court and other negotiations for years. In some cases, the Trump teams financially overpower and outlast much smaller opponents, draining their resources. Some just give up the fight, or settle for less; some have ended up in bankruptcy or out of business altogether.”
You can be sure Americans will be hearing a lot more about Trump’s real record in business in coming months, as it is a telling counterpoint to his “make America great” meme. He didn’t make the lives of these tradesmen and businesses great, he made them miserable, and in many cases these solo operators and family-owned businesses did not survive after losing thousands to billionaire Trump.
“The actions in total paint a portrait of Trump’s sprawling organization frequently failing to pay small businesses and individuals, then sometimes tying them up in court and other negotiations for years. In some cases, the Trump teams financially overpower and outlast much smaller opponents, draining their resources. Some just give up the fight, or settle for less; some have ended up in bankruptcy or out of business altogether.”
Forty-eight waiters. Dozens of bartenders and other hourly workers at his resorts and clubs, coast to coast.
Trump's Wealth Built on Stiffing Scores of Contractors, Businesses and Employees
originally posted by: onequestion
Another poster in the construction industry explained why this happens in construction and what that means.
Now rather than claim that there's x amount of lawsuits show us ruling against trump and show us who was actually managerialy responsible for making the choices involved.
I read the USA Today article because the other one simply cited it. Clearly the author of the article (and the author of the OP in this thread) know nothing about construction/development and didn't bother to do any research.
Mechanics liens and claims are par for the course for most very large, mulit-million dollar projects. Just because a claim is made, does not mean that the subcontractor making the claim is correct. The article does not seem to look into the why claims were denied.
Case in point. The project I'm managing now is relatively small ($11,000,000). I received a request for a change order from the roofing subcontractor (through the general contractor) for additional costs associated with labor and material to apply additional coats of applied waterproofing. The long and short of it is the subcontractor didn't anticipate that the wood plank roof would absorb as much of the waterproofing as it did. Although on a personal level I feel for them, and this mistake will eat up some of their profit, there is no way I can justify paying them additional funds for a mistake that they made while putting their bid together. In other words, the wood planks that were installed prior to their work were as shown in the original contract drawings. The problem they have is a mistake that their estimator made while preparing their bid. If we had made changes to the they type of wood that was installed and this change caused them to require additional material, then they would have a valid claim.
In this case, the change order is being denied. At the end of the project they will request a Commissioner's Determination, which will be denied. Then they will file a lien against the project, which the General Contractor's bonding company will deal with. Then, if they think it's worth while, they will attempt to sue.
This is one of many such situations going on regarding one $11,000,000 project. When you have the portfolio that Trump has with (I'm guessing) billions of dollars worth of construction, I would be shocked if there weren't tons and tons of liens and unresolved claims and law suits.
I also have questions about other parts of the article. How many of the delayed payment claims are due to the Trump organizations directly versus the CM firms or GCs that are slow to make payment to subcontractors. Most construction contracts between GCs and subcontractors have "pay when paid" clauses meaning that when a subcontractor completes work, they will get paid when the GC gets paid. I have seen more instances than I can remember when an owner pays the GC, only to receive desperate phone calls months later from a subcontractor informing me that the GC hadn't paid them. The article provides absolutely no information about these types of allegations... at all.
As far as individual workers getting paid, that too has nothing to do with Trumps organizations. As far a construction goes, the developer typically pays only a general contractor (or a CM if they hire a CM... and when a CM is involved the developer my have a single payment to the CM who will pay the GC or the two contracts may be separate). Ultimately, any individual "worker" would never, ever receive a paycheck from the developer. Their paychecks get cut by the contractor that they work for.
Nope. Because ...There is nothing to spin or explain away. The only person who has "splainin' to do" in my estimation is the author of the article to his bosses because he CLEARLY was writing about things he knows nothing about and lacked to learn about.