Noel Cintron, President Trump’s former personal driver of 25 years, filed a lawsuit against the Trump Organization yesterday. He claims he was not paid for thousands of hours of overtime and that he was only given two raises within a span of 15 years- one of which required that he sacrifice his health insurance in order to receive the pay increase.
Cintron said he worked as many as 55 hours per week, with shifts often outside of the normal 8-hour workday, but was paid on a fixed salary. His original starting salary, when he started in 2003 was $62,700. His salary was raised to $68,000 in 2006. His final raise was given in 2010. The last raise came with a detrimental price: Cintron had to relinquish his health insurance. Although the raise brought his total salary to $75,000, the health insurance he lost was worth $18,000, according to the suit.
Filed in New York County Supreme Court against two of Trump’s business companies, the lawsuit alleges that Trump “shirked his obligation” to provide any overtime pay for more than 20 years. Cintron sued for $178,200 in overtime pay which equates to an astounding 3300 hours and $5,000 in penalties under New York’s labor law. Unfortunately, he couldn’t sue for overtime prior to the past six years because of the statute of limitations in the state.
“President Trump’s further callousness and cupidity is further demonstrated by the fact that while he is purportedly a billionaire, he has not given his personal driver a meaningful raise in over 12 years!” Cintron declared.
Ironically, Cintron, a registered Republican, still works for Trump as a part of his security staff.
A spokesperson for the lawsuit-entangled organization said Cintron’s lawsuit was frivolous.
“Mr. Cintron was at all times paid generously and in accordance with the law,” the spokesperson said in a statement provided to Business Insider. “Once the facts come out we expect to be fully vindicated in court.”
