Donald Trump developed, owns, or licenses his name to more than 45 buildings in the U.S. and Canada in the jurisdictions of 17 IBEW local unions.

A review of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's projects reveals that he hires union when project labor agreements or dominant market share force him to. But more than 60 percent of his projects developed outside New York City and Atlantic City – which includes most of his recent projects – were built nonunion. When you exclude developments with project labor agreements, that jumps to nearly 80 percent built nonunion.

According to thousands of lawsuits filed against him and his companies, when union contractors were hired, Trump developed a reputation for stiffing some, delaying payment to others and shorting workers on overtime and even minimum wage.

The lawsuits included 60 for not paying his bills, 24 violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act and four corporate bankruptcies that left hundreds of contractors with dimes, nickels, even pennies on the dollar. He has been sued for hiring undocumented workers, presided over thousands of layoffs and acquired tens of millions of dollars in personal wealth while companies he owned failed. At least five of the companies he has owned have terminated health insurance for employees, ended retiree health insurance, canceled their pension plans or some combination of all three.

Like all politicians, Trump has made statements, issued campaign promises and taken positions on policies. Trump has also been clear about his support for policies that have historically led to weaker unions.

He told the South Carolina Radio Network, for example, that he is “100 percent for right-to-work” and in December he said right-to-work states have an “advantage” because “you have the lower wage.”

But Trump is the first major party candidate for President of the United States whose business is also the IBEW’s business: construction.

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Trump Tower, where he announced his presidential campaign, was built on a site cleared by undocumented immigrant laborers from Poland.

The tower was built on the site of Bonwit Teller, a landmark stone fortress that for decades was a filled with fur coats, French dresses and fine jewelry. But in 1980, a platoon of 200 undocumented immigrants from Poland worked round the clock, seven days a week tearing it down in preparation for the black glass and marble tower to rise. Three years later, a member of the Demolition Workers Local 95 sued Trump for trying to avoid paying union wages and benefits.

After eight years in the court, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York wrote, “No records were kept, no Social Security or other taxes were withheld, and they were not paid in accordance with wage laws. They were told they would be paid $4.00 or in some cases $5.00 an hour for working 12-hour shifts seven days a week. In fact they were paid irregularly and incompletely, sometimes with [the subcontractor’s] personal checks, which were returned by the bank for insufficient funds.”

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After New York City, Trump is most closely associated with the three casinos he built in Atlantic City. In 1976, New Jersey voters passed a referendum approving casino gambling for Atlantic City. Six years later, Trump broke ground on the Trump Plaza and Casino.

The construction business in Atlantic City was dominated, like in New York, by the building trades, and all of Trump’s hotels and casinos were built using union contractors, said Folsom, N.J., Local 351 Business Manager Dan Cosner.

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“Every wire was our work, and there was a lot of work,” Cosner said.

The glory days were short for Trump in Atlantic City, and when Cosner recently spoke to contractors about working with Trump, they didn’t think the glory days reached down much farther.

“They didn’t have much good to say,” Cosner said. “He has a bad name.”

Trump got a reputation, Cosner said, for failing to pay his bills on time, and some cases, at all.

“It isn’t enough to ask if unions got Trump’s work,” Cosner said. “You also have to ask if they got paid.”

Cosner said nearly every contractor he spoke to called Trump a “slow pay” and full payment only came “after a long process.”

“We controlled the city, so he built union, but he stiffed a lot of contractors and didn’t pay others what they were due,” Cosner said. “And that is not usual. We don’t run into that here.”

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Former Trump Plaza president Jack O’Connell told the Wall Street Journal this was not an occasional oversight.

“Part of how he did business as a philosophy was to negotiate the best price he could. And then when it came time to pay the bills,” O’Connell said, Trump would say that “‘I’m going to pay you but I’m going to pay you 75 percent of what we agreed to.’”

It was known as the “Trump discount,” according to the Economist Magazine.

This also leaves out all of the contractors who saw their contracts torn up in bankruptcy court.

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In Florida, for example, where Trump developed, or licensed his name to eight projects, only one used IBEW signatory contractors: his palatial home and private club at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach. Trump renovated Mar-a-Lago in 1986 soon after he bought it, and Local 728 has had the maintenance contract ever since.

“For everything he sold to other people, he went nonunion. But for his house, he went with us,” said Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., Local 728 Business Manager Dan Svetlick.

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The impetus for Trump's tweet appears to be that Joe Biden is criticizing him at an IBEW event. The IBEW itself put together an investigation in 2016 discussing, at length, how Trump treats his works, including electricians.