I just saw a post the other day by a very well-known farm where they recognized their staff and had them give their names and how long they had worked there. There were a few relatively recent hires, but there were several people who had been there for many years, if not decades.
To me, that seems like a pretty good sign that they treat their help well and show their appreciation.
I guess it makes sense that supply creates demand, but could changing business models be the solution to help reduce that reliance? It does seem (based on posts here) that US barns are more likely to use grooms for clients than what would be more typical here. How did it start that using undocumented workers became normalized in the equine industry?
It is a foreign concept to me to hire people who lack rights - i get that they are likely better off in the US working vs back home, but it also seems that making this “easy” for employers has made it so there is less motivation to help improve foreign worker programs that would give those workers increased rights and protections, but maybe I am missing something.
In this area, workers come via word of mouth or social media ads. All three of my workers came this way. I never asked their status because I don’t care. They do an excellent job, and are reliable.
ETA the concept of “lacking rights” is irrelevant to my workers. People can be treated well and happy in their roles without needing to invoke any protections from the government. I’m an American citizen that has worked dozens of jobs and never needed to enforce my rights with an employer. Similar to what my workers could do, if I didn’t like where I was working, I quit and found another job.
Curious: did you help them access health care coverage/insurance?
If you don’t know their “Status” how are you insuring you are paying their withholding/income taxes properly? Seems odd to me that knowing someone’s “status” would be important to an employer (it would be in Canada), but is that not the case in the US?
(not attacking you, as you aren’t the only one to say this, it just seems very foreign a concept)
Sent you a DM
Why can’t this be shared here? CHT asked a great question.
Where I am, at least, a lot of people who own horses also work full time plus. They often live in communities with no boarding facilities. So just getting to where one needs to go takes a lot if time.
I’ll give myself as an example, although I’m unemployed so it no longer applies. A map showing my house, the (former) barn, and my workplace would be a triangle with roughly a 45 minute drive between each location. There is no way to do the trip by public transport.
Current barn is 30 minutes from home, and barn to former workplace is 1 to 2 hours depending on traffic.
Since it’s not super likely I’m going to be re-employed, I’d reconsider self-care or co-op barns if I needed to. But even those are hard to find, and my elderly mare has some specific needs that already make it hard enough to find a barn.
You can always pay them as an independent contractor then you don’t have to do withholding etc
This. 72 hours a week and paying only $600 for the week, no health insurance/benefits.
This post is great. I was trying to write something like this myself but you put it very nicely.
IMHO - one of the best ways to address undocumented workers in ag/horse industry, is to remove the “temporary” part of the H-2A visa. I believe it’s still an employer-sponsored visa so barn owners would have to do work in order to utilize this visa.
Legal workers are paid fairly and covered by all the employee protections (OHSA, FLSA, workers comp, etc etc). The reality is that in many cases this will cost the barn owner more…thus board/training would go up. For big high end show barns with stalls full of six figure horses, I would hope that clientele can/would pay more.
Where the effects would be seen the most probably, are mid-size barns that need just one or two employees. There’s just a bit too much work for the barn owner to handle the day to day by themselves so they do need employees. But often clientele at these barns is “only” upper-middle class…folks that enjoy horses, want to be in a good barn/program, and do a bit of showing but won’t/can’t handle a large increase in board/training.
I often wonder if the OHSA is even aware of the horse industry. There are so many things that go on all the time that seem pretty darn unsafe.
They are. If rescue/police are called to a serious injury (like a tractor accident, serious horse injury etc) they call OSHA
Lol if you think I’m sharing details about how I run my business in a place like this when I’m not anonymous you must be crazy.
Smart decision.
You never know who is coordinating behind the scenes and will decide to run with details and report their misinterpretation of whatever they have concluded to an employer or state regulatory agency or something else weird.
Anyway - it sounds like you try to be a good employer, good horse owner, good barn owner, and good to your clients . And that’s all commendable.
Well… a lot of places just pay cash under the table and don’t do all that. Super illegal but until you get caught…
I know barns that do a “cash discount” vs if you pay with check or electronically, because they can skirt taxes that way. When PayPal and other e-commerce sites started reporting out transactions more than they were initially, a LOT of people/small businesses went back to cash. Not because it messed up the books they were properly filing, but because they were evading taxes.
(To be clear, I am NOT accusing anyone specific of doing this. I’m just speaking generally. Lots of people get away with tax evasion and fraud… until they don’t. Small amounts of it - like paying part time barn help in cash - will fly under the radar. When it’s normalized in a corner of the world, a lot of people don’t even realize it’s illegal until someone gets audited by the IRS!)
Hahahaha. Nope. At the risk of bringing the P word into this, the current POTUS and VPOTUS are married to immigrants. So, that part isn’t going to happen.
Exactly. Or who decides that someone has an “illegal” working for them that needs to be reported to ICE (which is, after all, the topic of this thread).
Yup.
Sad to say. But it’s entirely predictable
Until you get caught calling an employee an independent contractor and having to pay all the witholdings for however long.
True, which is why lawyers and CPAs that know the difference are very important. 
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