Trump Tower Built with Undocumented Polish Workers

The Demolition Crew

Before Trump Tower could rise on Fifth Avenue, the elegant Bonwit Teller department store building on the site had to come down. The demolition job fell largely to a crew of roughly 200 undocumented Polish immigrants, who became known as the “Polish Brigade.” These workers labored under grueling conditions, often working 12-hour shifts, seven days a week, without hard hats or other basic safety equipment. Many slept on the job site because they had nowhere else to go.

The workers were paid as little as $4 to $5 an hour, well below the union wage for demolition work at the time, and some were not paid at all for weeks or months. The crew was supplied through a labor contractor named William Kaszycki, who had connections to both the Trump Organization and the demolition industry.

The Bonwit Teller Controversy

The demolition also generated a separate controversy over Trump’s broken promises regarding the building’s ornate Art Deco limestone relief panels and a large grillwork above the entrance. Trump had initially agreed to donate the architecturally significant pieces to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But the demolition crew destroyed them instead. Trump claimed that removing the pieces intact would have cost $500,000 and delayed construction, a price he was unwilling to pay. The Metropolitan Museum publicly expressed its disappointment, and preservation advocates were outraged.

The incident foreshadowed a pattern in which Trump would make promises to secure approval for projects and then discard those commitments once construction was underway.

The Lawsuit and Its Aftermath

The exploitation of the Polish workers eventually led to a class-action lawsuit, Hardy v. Kaszycki, filed in 1983. The suit alleged that Trump and his contractors had knowingly employed undocumented workers and cheated them out of wages and benefits. Testimony in the case revealed that Trump had been personally informed about the immigration status of the workers but had allowed the arrangement to continue because it was cheaper and faster than using union labor.

The case dragged on for years. In 1991, a federal judge found that Trump had engaged in a conspiracy to cheat the workers out of their wages and benefits. Trump eventually settled the case in 1999 for an undisclosed amount, after more than 15 years of litigation. The episode would take on particular irony decades later when Trump launched his presidential campaign with a speech calling Mexican immigrants criminals and rapists, and made cracking down on undocumented immigration the centerpiece of his political identity.