Consequences, consequences!
The racing industry has been a notoriously low wage environment. To blame the agressive attention on immigration and green card regulations on low employee availability is absolutely absurb. What a joke to interview Dale Romans, â man who has never passed up a 2nd or a 3rd helping at an expensive restaurant or super sized high calorie snack between meals, for this article. The vast majority of industry workers make minimum wage while a few successful trainers like Romans look forward to hiring cheap labor anywhere they can get it. Get real, the PWC starting gate was just filled at a million dollars a pop. Consequences? For who?
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I was not able to read the article without filling out a survey, so I did not read it. The visa is a problem for some trainers. WRT minimum wage, most grooms get extra pay when they have to go to the races. When they don’t have to go to the races, they rarely work more than 8 hours a day. Farm help is different, but I believe there are special rules for ag workers. Here is an article from December:
Do you think raising wages will bring conscientious, intelligent US people into these jobs? Not saying that the present endangered employees are neither conscientious or intelligent. The are, but earn more than they could earn at home.
At this point in the history of racing and the complicated and fragile state of its current affairs, I am not sure what the answer is. I can’t argue that it is not a complicated issue. Whether the industry can draw on the present American workforce is up to what it can offer (or is willing to offer) for the future. The VA horse industry I remember growing up in was predominantly black and poor white labor who worked for meager wages. Doesn’t seem to me much has changed in the last 7 decades other than the addition of a second language.
Labor laws are predominantly state regulated which makes the discussion more problematic and AG labor laws from state to state are very confusing. A tighter immigration and VISA policy has broader implications to our nation than one industry and Dale Romans’ waist line. No surprise KY is getting indigestion over this.
Current politics aside, racing has problems broader and more abhorrent than cheap foreign labor. I recall Bob Baffert remarking that racing doesn’t have any problems. Maybe he hasn’t run any horses lately at Finger Lakes, Mountaineer, Penn National, Les Bois, etc. Maybe a night staying in backstretch housing would change his tune.
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And how many of those Latino workers on which trainers depend are female? Females would seem to me to be a pool of workers who would be interested in working with horses as grooms. Look at how many females are grooms at horse barns in England. American horse racing uses emigrants because they are CHEAP.
American horse racing uses immigrants because they will do the job. A racetrack job is hard work. You have to be willing to do manual labor, to work outside in all kinds of weather, to pay attention to a big, fit animal (ie, not be on your phone) and to work a broken schedule that involves getting up very early in the morning. Most American workers who show up at the track looking for a job quickly find the work “too hard”.
The trainers we’ve had horses with all paid their grooms a good deal more than someone would make working at MacDonalds or another unskilled-labor job. (And by the way that includes Dale Romans. I have no idea how taking pot shots at his size adds to the discussion. :rolleyes:) Plus most barns “stake” their employees. It’s not at all unusual for 2-3% of a horse’s winning to go to be distributed among the help.
I know there are many posters here who only think the worst of racing. But assuming that all track workers are mistreated and taken advantage of is just wrong.
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You are very correct about cheap as this study points out.
http://www.epi.org/publication/h2b-t…mporary-labor/
H2B wages are considerably lower and there is no evidence that there is a void in the U S for workers capable of filling these jobs. Any suggestion that U S workers won’t or can’t do the work in horse racing is self serving by those in the industry that have the most to benefit financially from H2B or cheap illegal labor. For anyone like yourself to suggest there is a problem with this labor is not anti-horse racing, but surely an honest perspective looking to save racing. Next, pro-H2B cheap horse racing labor advocates will insist that if racehorses could talk it would be in Spanish.
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You’re trying to draw an equivalency between cultures. I dealt with a lot of entry-level employees at the farm level and over time I came to the conclusion that when a new female employee proclaimed that she wanted to work in the industry because she just LUUUUUVED horses, I could expect her to last only a few days (at best.) Some only lasted until lunchtime on the first day. None of them quit over money; they quit because they found out that working with horses in a professional atmosphere was hard work and was not about petting horses, feeding carrots, or hanging out with friends as was done at the lesson barn. Not being sexist, just sharing my observations gleaned through the years. To love horses and to love working with horses are two distinctly different things and frankly I’d rather have someone with no horse experience and a GOOD work ethic over the alternative.
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I cleared more money working on the track than I do as even a teacher.
The problem was I worked 7 days a week with no time off, no health insurance, and no employee sponsored retirement.
When I was “promoted,” my employer was going to provide (pricey) health insurance and one day off per week.
Sure, my hourly wage was lower on paper, but with almost no deductions and so many hours worked per week, it came out to a lot of cash in my pocket.
“Cheap” is not the chief factor at play. The lifestyle SUCKS and very few are willing to work that hard. But if you are willing to take on the lifestyle, there is a lot of money to be had.
Regarding the comparison to Europe, I think the difference is we have a source of laborers in the US coming from less developed countries where working hard is the norm. So we take advantage of the access to those workers, and instead of providing a cushy “western culture” lifestyle for our industry, we expect everyone to adopt their work ethic. It’s not “CHEAP”, but it is “easier” to pay a few workers well and work them hard than it is to juggle scheduling larger staff at lower wages.
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Texarkana: The term “cheap” alludes to the low wage and benefit scale that is an attractive and legal part of this temporary foreign worker program. I didn’t mean it to be disparaging of the workers. Also, as you are probably aware, horseracing H2B workers are seasonal and considered non-agriculture. The current program, as I understand it, is annually capped at around 70K. Often H2B workers are moved from state to state in violation of the law. An example would be trainers moving stables from NY to FL during the winter when H2B workers were approved only for NY. I could be wrong, but I recall Steve Asmussen violated this provision some years back and got fined.
As for the ladies, my experience in the equine workplace is that women carry themselves in the industry equally if not better than men. Certainly, as was my experience, horses react and respond emotionally better to women who are more attentive to detail and offer a comforting touch more readily.
@Shammy Davis But the thing is, the wages aren’t that low. I agree that the lack of benefits makes positions more attractive to foreign workers vs. “western” workers. But the dependence on foreign workers is more a matter of the lifestyle and lack of benefits than the wage itself IMO.
For example, many of these articles and studies are reporting hourly wages that seem quite low. I don’t think I was ever paid hourly by any trainer. It was usually weekly pay. My duties were 7 days a week, however, some days, I might work 10 hours, while on a slow day or week I might only work 5 hours or less. My pay was still the same. I received extra bonuses for going to the races and I received bonuses for my horses finishing in the money. Much of that was under the table-- for example, if a generous owner “gifted” you a larger part of the earnings.
My tax deductions were minor because on paper, based on my wage, it did not look like I was earning much. So the money I cleared in pocket was GOOD.
Problem was, being raised in a society with holidays and weekends, I wanted days off. My parents were going ballistic that I had no health insurance and was not saving for retirement. Sure, I could have saved on my own and purchased my own insurance, but as most folks know, purchasing non-employee sponsored health insurance is considerably more expensive.
I left the track to go work for a university because I wanted those benefits. The university paid me near identical wages according to my W2, yet I couldn’t pay my bills because I was clearing less of my earnings. But it was worth it to me to have those western culture creature comforts.
I never had more than a few employees at a time because I had a small barn but unless I won a race that week every single one of them made more money than I did. They worked hard and got paid well for it. Every smart businessman knows you are only as successful as your employees.
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Sounds from what Texarkana wrote that the racing industry is violating just about every wage and hour law on the books–or at least her trainer did. For instance, she should have received overtime pay for every hour over 40 that she worked in those seven days, paid weekly or not. Gifts under the table don’t usually count. Housing and food do. But all that has to be reported.
And it sounds as if the arrangement didn’t report actual compensation to the IRS.
@vineyridge , the thing is, I don’t think I worked over 40 hrs most weeks on average. I was compensated extra for long days at the races, but on an average day I was done in well less than 8 hours. Usually 4-6. As you know with horses, it’s just that sometimes things went longer. Not much different than a salaried employee in any white collar job.
Getting at work at 4am, 7 days a week, to do dangerous and hard labor was the crappy part.
I’m not trying to argue that the system is perfect. It’s not. But both foreign and non-foreign workers suffer far worse fates in their jobs than the racing industry. To this day, I still mainintain the last barn I worked for was my “best” job in my entire career as far as how I was paid and how I was treated, I just couldn’t keep up the lifestyle and wanted benefits.
Your points are all well taken, but the OP was about curtailing foreign workers under the temporary work visa program. The above linked EPI information indicates that these employees are seasonal opportunities and I am not sure that you can equate the US permanent worker or green card holder to the temporary work visa holder which is applied for annually. Apples and oranges so to speak.
To put it in perspective, 40 hours at $7.25 is $290 a week. I’m not sure, but I think the going rate in the Mid Atlantic area for grooms at the track is about $125 per horse per week. So rubbing 4 horses nets $500. Grooms and assistants/foremen have the most varied hours because sometimes they have to travel to the races etc. The outfits I am acquainted with pay an additional fee to the groom race day, with the amount dependent on whether or not the groom has to travel and if it’s night racing. The win bonus for a claiming race is $100, for allowance $150 and for a stake it depends on the purse. Exercise riders have much shorter hours and earn more.
@Shammy Davis I understand that I was not personally held to the standards of a temporary work visa. But my response is motivated by some of the misconceptions that were taken away from the OP’s article.
For example, your quote:
“The vast majority of industry workers make minimum wage while a few successful trainers like Romans look forward to hiring cheap labor anywhere they can get it.”
That’s not what’s happening in my opinion from my first hand experience. It’s more a matter of hard work/lifestyle than the wages.
Temporary visas, for the racing world, allow trainers to legally hire people willing to do jobs that permanent residents are rarely interested in.
I would love to see the horse racing industry be able to offer all employees a scheduled 40 hr week with holidays, weekends, overtime pay, PTO, insurance, and retirement… but at the moment, there is no infrastructure to support that type of model, as pretty much every barn is operating as its own small business. It’s not a change that can happen overnight. Maybe if things continue the way the past month has, the change will arise out of necessity. But in reality, what will likely happen is the industry will struggle from yet another blow against it-- the loss of workforce.
There are a vast number of Americans who do shift work starting at 3 am. It doesn’t seem to ruin their lives. Seven days a week would, and, IMO, should be illegal. It probably is in most of the rest of the civilized world.
As to the temporary visas, how many barns actually LOOK for Americans before they apply for such visas. If they advertised a job paying $500 per week plus bonuses, and offer a group plan for health insurance for all licensed track workers nationwide, why wouldn’t some of those unemployed factory or oil industry workers hop at the opportunity. There are plenty of jobs like long haul truckers where employers are having trouble finding workers, but they don’t seem to ask for foreigners through the US visa programs.
If the racing industry wanted to appeal to US citizens, it could. It could create the infrastructure that Texarkana talked about. It could change. It just doesn’t want to. If it loses its workforce, then it will either change or die.
This!
When I stopped working in racing over a decade ago, IIRC I was making $600/week at what was, then, the largest racing operation in North America.
“Low wages” are hardly the problem, especially considering you have a largely uneducated workforce. But it’s not a job that most would be willing to do. NOT because of how you are treated, but because of the dedication/commitment/physical intensity it requires.
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