Nice:
"I had witnessed Donald Trump tell managers many times while he was visiting the club that restaurant hostesses were 'not pretty enough' and that they should be fired and replaced with more attractive women," Hayley Strozier, who was director of catering at the club until 2008, said in a sworn declaration.
As part of a lawsuit brought against Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes, employees of the Club were asked to provide sworn declarations in which they described their experiences with the Club’s “work culture,” and in particular, the misogynistic behavior of Donald J. Trump. According to these court documents (recently made public and obtained by the Los Angeles Times), Trump would visit the Club a few times every year, repeating the same admonition over and over again: fire the women who weren’t “pretty enough,” in his judgment.
Initially, Trump gave this command "almost every time" he visited, Strozier said. Managers eventually changed employee schedules "so that the most attractive women were scheduled to work when Mr. Trump was scheduled to be at the club," she said.
This pattern of discrimination was also echoed in several declarations filed by employees for another Labor Relations-based lawsuit against one of Trump’s development companies.
The source article, authored by Matt Pearce for the Times, is replete with examples of the work environment Trump promoted at his golf course. One server was denied promotion because of “acne." Another employee was repeatedly deemed “too fat." Trump surrogate managers, always citing the preferences of Trump himself, are quoted throughout urging that people be terminated because of their looks or their body weight:
"Mr. Stellio told me to do this because 'Mr. Trump doesn't like fat people' and that he would not like seeing (the employee) when he was on the premises," wrote Strozier, who said she refused the request. (Stellio died in 2010.)
A year later, Mike van der Goes — a golf pro who had been promoted to be Trump National's general manager — made a similar request to fire the same overweight employee, Strozier said.
One waitress stated she had her hours cut back until she was effectively fired, due to her age (60) and the fact that Trump wanted younger, prettier hostesses. Several women quit or were terminated as a result of these policies, according to the article, which also details Trump’s patronizing and sexist behavior towards female employees.
The primary basis for the suit by employees of Trump’s golf course is that the workers were denied meal or rest breaks which were required under California law:
Employees said managers urged them to hurry through brief meal breaks, sometimes even expressing impatience with bathroom breaks.
"My manager insisted that because this was Trump's golf course, it had to be top-notch," one employee said in a declaration. "He was concerned that if Trump observed employees eating or resting, Trump would not be pleased.
The suit was settled in 2013, with a payout of $475,000 to affected employees.
Trump has made one of the planks of his campaign the promise to do away with pesky “regulations” such as those governing workplace sexual harassment, breaks and overtime, and discrimination, all in order to “unleash" the power of business.
Trump's behavior at his own golf course suggests that some dogs are better off on a leash.