The Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, N.J., on...

The Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, N.J., on March 19, 1987.  Credit: Newsday / John Paraskevas

As President Donald Trump oversees a shutdown of federal agencies, he might just hear echoes from his past in private business.

Accounts of uncompensated work, fruitless negotiations and even a personal preference for concrete became part of Trump's legacy long before he reached the White House.

These days, hundreds of thousands of federal employees are stiffed by circumstance. Their union has gone to court, arguing that the United States violates its own Fair Labor Standards Act by forcing "essential" employees to work without pay while a political standoff continues. Other workers have been furloughed.

Trump said without much force that he “can relate."

"I’m sure that the people that are on the receiving end will make adjustments — they always do — and they’ll make adjustments,” he told NBC over the weekend. “Many of those people that won’t be receiving a paycheck, many of those people agree 100 percent with what I’m doing.”

Maybe, maybe not. He shared no polling results. Either way, Trump showed little scruple in the past about letting people go unpaid for their work and services.

During the 2016 election, one example after another emerged of the Trump Organization allegedly shafting contractors.

One court case came from the cabinetmaker who never got paid for slot-machine bases, registration desks and other work at Harrah's at Trump Plaza.

In hundreds of other lawsuits and lien filings, people said Trump or his companies refused to pay them. A dishwasher, a glass company, a carpet company, a plumber, painters, waiters, bartenders and real estate brokers were among those cited by USA Today.

Don't be shocked if you hear Trump tell taxpayers he saved them money with the shutdown, even as he blames others for its occurrence.

Forget the "art of the deal" hype. Trump's negotiations bring chaos but not necessarily winning. 

He has even caved outright before.

As recounted by Politico, Trump faced financial collapse in 1990. Having already alienated New York City Hall, Trump consulted with neighborhood groups about a West Side development half the size of what he wanted.

Barbara Res, then a Trump Organization vice president, said: "He pretty much gave in to whatever they asked for. He was going broke. He really had nothing to bargain with. He caved. And he shouldn’t have — he should have tried. But he lost his nerve.”

Now Trump speaks of a willingness to spend taxpayer billions on steel barriers at the southern border rather than a concrete wall as he insisted on before. His chief of staff Mick Mulvaney spins this as a compromise with reluctant lawmakers.

Trump confronted the choice of steel or concrete decades ago when his Fifth Avenue tower was planned. Questions of expense were involved. Trump chose concrete. Subcontracts for the tower, and for Trump Plaza further uptown, went to S & A Concrete, part owned by "Fat Tony" Salerno, late boss of the Genovese crime family. 

Knowing this might add perspective when Trump gives his scheduled address Tuesday on his unpaid underlings, his talks with Congress and his "beautiful wall."

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