Hundreds of small businesses and employees have reportedly accused Donald Trump of not paying them
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Donald Trump has allegedly been accused of not paying hundreds of contractors and employees for their work, according to media reports published on Thursday.
USA Today analyzed 60 lawsuits documenting workers who were employed by Trump and his businesses during the past several decades who say that they weren't compensated for the services they provided, according to the report.
The accusers allegedly include hundreds of waiters, dishwashers, carpenters, plumbers, bartenders, real-estate brokers, and even lawyers who represented the businessman in various suits.
The son of one cabinet builder, Paul Friel, told the newspaper that his family's business submitted an $83,600 bill in the 1980s to the Trump Organization — part of a $400,000 contract to build cabinets and other furniture at Harrah's at Trump Plaza.
Friel said that the firm never received the payment, the report noted.
"That began the demise of the Edward J. Friel Company ... which has been around since my grandfather," Friel said.
The company was founded in the 1940s.
USA Today also found more than 200 mechanics' liens dating back to the 1980s, which were filed by contractors and employees claiming that Trump or his various companies and properties owed them payment for their work.
The publication said that records released in 1990 by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission revealed that on just one Atlantic City project, Trump's Taj Mahal casino, 253 subcontractors weren't paid in full or on time.
One drapery factory owner, Larry Walters, told The Wall Street Journal that his company was hired to supply Trump's Las Vegas hotel eight years ago. But Walters said that the developer, Trump Ruffin, refused to pay when it demanded additional work that went beyond the original contract.
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Walters said that when he withheld some fabric, Trump Ruffin sued him and authorities burst into the factory and hauled the fabric away in trucks.
Trump told The Wall Street Journal in May that he sometimes doesn't pay vendors and business owners if their work was merely satisfactory — "an OK-to-bad job."
"I love to hold back and negotiate when people don't do good work," he said.
Similarly, he and his daughter, Ivanka, told USA Today that if people they employ aren't fully paid, then it's because the Trump Organization was unhappy with their work.
"Let's say that they do a job that's not good, or a job that they didn't finish, or a job that was way late. I'll deduct from their contract, absolutely," Trump said. "That's what the country should be doing."
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