Several former employees of the Trump International Hotel in Washington DC are speaking out about how working for Donald Trump affected their relationships with family and prior business partners.
Former executive chef Shawn Matijevich who worked at the upscale BLT Prime restaurant in the hotel from 2017-2018, told Washingtonian Magazine that working at the Trump hotel was hard on some of the employees, especially the Hispanics, who were a large portion of their kitchen staff.
“I’d say probably 80 to 90 percent of my kitchen staff was Hispanic,” Matijevich says. “A lot of people that worked there, their friends wouldn’t talk to them anymore. Some of the Hispanic workers, their family wouldn’t talk to them while they were working there, even their back-home family in other countries.”
Matijevich says a green supplier he worked with in the past cut ties with him saying their conscience would not allow them to provide services to the hotel.
Bill Williamson, the executive chef of BLT Prime, who took over after Matijevich’s departure in 2018, and worked there for two years said food suppliers whom he had successfully worked with in the past “were suddenly sending him rotten produce and subpar cuts of meats and fish.”
“I guarantee someone in that warehouse picking this product saw where it was going and was like, ‘Oh, f— it, give ’em this stuff,’ ” Williamson said.
One pro-Trump manager who loved his job told the Washingtonian that he left because he simply could not handle the disdain he received from the public anymore.
He said joggers would give him the finger when he took a break on the hotel terrace and was called a “racist” when he wore his hotel uniform on the Metro once. Passengers also shouted “shame on you”. He never wore his uniform in public again.
In 2019, the Trump Organization announced that they were trying to sell the property for half a billion dollars. If someone buys the hotel they’ll be starting from scratch.
Current staffers are worried that they will lose their jobs under a new management and are concerned that they may not be able to find new positions if they list the hotel or the restaurant on their résumés.
