Trump Golf Course Managers Pressured to Fire 'Fat' or 'Unattractive' Women, Employees Allege

RANCHO PALOS, CA -- Forced to choose between their own consciences and pressure from their bosses to fire competent employees who didn’t fit Donald Trump’s beauty standards, managers at Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes devised a scheme, according to legal documents.

They scheduled only “pretty, young” women to work in the clubhouse when Trump was scheduled to visit, and the older, overweight or “unattractive” staffers were hidden from view to save their jobs, several employees stated in signed legal declarations included in a 2012 labor lawsuit filed by the golf club employees.

"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,” the club’s former catering director Hayley Strozier said in her sworn statement.

The 668-page lawsuit, unearthed in an article published by the Los Angeles Times Thursday, is filled with stories of direct discrimination and sexual harassment of female employees. According to the sworn statements, managers at the golf club were repeatedly urged to fire unattractive employees and the GOP standard bearer showered attractive employees with unwanted or degrading attention.

Hope Hicks, the Trump campaign spokeswoman, has not responded to Patch’s interview requests about the allegations.

'Mr. Trump Doesn't Like Fat People'

In her sworn statement, Strozier recalls being pressured repeatedly to fire a woman for being overweight.
"(Trump Organization vice president Vincent Stellio) told me to do this because 'Mr. Trump doesn't like fat people' and that he would not like seeing [the woman] when he was on the premises,” wrote Strozier.

After Strozier refused to fire the woman, she said Stellio warned her she would get in trouble. Later that same year, according to Strozier, the club’s general manager Mike van der Goes also asked her to fire the employee because, “Mr. Trump didn’t like people that looked like her.”

When Strozier again refused, van der Goes devised the plan to hide the overweight employee from Trump, she said.

“This made me even more angry, and I told Mr. van der Goes I was disappointed in him as a man and a father,” she wrote in her declaration.

Van der Goes could not be reached for comment.

'Fed Up with the Toxic Environment'

Women weren’t the only staffers who said they were uncomfortable with Trump’s hiring and firing of women based solely on their looks.

The club’s former restaurant manager Charles West also issued a sworn statement, alleging he was instructed by his boss to hire only young, attractive women as hostesses, and they needed to be screened to make sure they are “sufficiently pretty” before they could be hired.

“I had heard from other colleagues not only that Mr. Trump preferred employing good-looking, young people but also that he did not like seeing employees who were old or fat,” West wrote.

“The actions of Mr. Trump that I observed were consistent with what I heard about him from the club’s other managers. For example, on one occasion, Mr. Trump saw a young, attractive hostess working named Nicole ... and directed that she be brought to a place where he was meeting with a group of men,” wrote West. “After this woman had been presented to him, Mr. Trump said to his guests something like, 'See, you don’t have to go to Hollywood to find beautiful women.' He also turned to Nicole and asked her, 'Do you like Jewish men?'"

Another male employee wrote that he had seen a c0-worker crying because a manager told her she couldn’t be promoted to waitress because she suffered from acne. That employee quit, he wrote.

Another staffer Maral Bolsajian wrote that Trump made her uncomfortable when he visited, calling her "girl" and asking her “inappropriate” questions about whether she was happy in her marriage.

Still another staffer complained about age discrimination at the club. Gail Doner, a self-described experienced server in her 60s, wrote that the least experienced but prettiest staffers were given the best shifts while her hours were cut back to nothing.

“It did not appear to me that this reduction in shifts was happening to any of the younger, more attractive female food servers," Doner wrote. “I chose not to fight to get my job back because by that point I was fed up with the toxic environment and the way that I was treated.”

Click here to read the full lawsuit obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

Photo by Michael Vadon via flickr.com