I resurrected my account to see if folks were chatting about this. I’m in the central midwest.
This is totally anecdotal, but there are now 3 barns that I know of (as an ammy casually perusing facebook) that are looking for help with stalls because they’ve lost their employees. I have no idea if there is concern about ICE raids specifically, but more generally, it seems that there is for sure a disruption. I’m scared about what this means for the horse industry and others that rely on immigrants.
I think it’s hard in general to find people wanting to do barn work. I saw a 19yo person wanting $15 a stall because they could “make more elsewhere.” I think a boarding barn said that was close to 100k a year and it would force them to close. Locally its 15 to 20 an hour here.
Even barns paying $20 an hour plus benefits and OT struggle to find help.
Some of the conversations on FB regarding people concerned about whether or not ICE will raid horse shows in popular warm weather winter locations are mind boggling.
Suck it up, and pay more for grooms who are working legally in the country. That’s your answer in the short term.
If you are wealthy enough to afford to ship your horses to a nice climate and to enjoy horse showing at a premier venue in a warmer weather location, but simultaneously prefer to employ undocumented migrants as your grooms because it’s more affordable for you… I don’t even know what to say.
If I’m going to have to do manual labor in all weather, I’ll work construction at $25 base pay.
Barn workers are woefully underpaid. Yes, it’s [relatively] unskilled labor. But the work is outright miserable to do day in and day out, long hours, dangerous, expected to be on call 7 days a week. That comes with a stiff price, or high turnover. Pick one.
This is going to be bad for the equine world, but much worse for the general public. Look at the supply chain we have for food alone, lots of immigrant workers there and if they are afraid to show up for work or get detained by ICE for who knows how long…we will start seeing that manifest with limited food selection and more costly options. I imagine that is just the start.
It is hard. I did it in college, but after getting a full time job the barn schedule wasn’t conducive and the pay wasn’t worth it.
Everyday boarding barns aren’t profitable enough to pay liveable wages for most Americans. They rely on workers in the margins- immigrants, students, retirees- who have less labor power. They can be great opportunities for people who work odd hours or want to make extra cash, but the jobs aren’t designed for the long-term.
People in various groups online are openly wondering what they can possibly do to help the folks who labor in their barns and take such good care of their horses….
Uhhhh… you can pay them more. Get a group of folks together to pay thousands and thousands in attorneys fees to make arrangements so the person can work in America legally.
I never found barn work to be tedious or unskilled. The undocumented workers I worked side-by-side with were equally skilled and had an ungodly work ethos.
The high cost of land and other material aspects of keeping horses
The high cost of labor
Barns have to adjust their business models accordingly. The reality is many people are getting priced out of the sport. And that’s sad. But… it would be a positive thing if barn labor was treated better and paid better. Just my opinion.
An article I read on the raid on the seafood distributor in Newark stated that agents are allowed to enter public areas of a business without a warrant, but require a warrant to enter those areas not open to the public, such as break rooms, offices and store rooms. It’s likely those areas of showgrounds that are open to spectators are fair game. But I am not a lawyer nor an expert!
However, it sounds like they have may have entered non-public areas in the Newark raid without a warrant, so they may not be sticklers for that law.
Edit: change that last “law” to “constitutional right.”
The bulk of barn work is VERY tedious. Show up, feed, turnout, pick stalls, clean/fill water, turn in, feed, night check (maybe clean stall, top off water if needed). Unless you have obnoxious/dangerous horses, this is unskilled labor - I can train a person in less than a week to do this. They aren’t horseman, they’re poop pickers. And it’s a really crummy job.
This thread wasn’t about pay…. It’s about what we can do to help in the current situation.
We are well past helping people to document.
I’m not in it anymore. If I were, and I had the money I would offer my Valued employees passage with cash if they wish to go. I live in the state of Missouri currently. The legislature is considering Legislation which would permit bounty hunters(The exact term used in the legislation) To turn in suspected illegals for $1000 each.
Obviously, this is going to start at the major showgrounds. I remember the raids of the Late 70s. I expect this will be much worse.
I live in a horse community in a horse town . It’s not just the regular stall cleaners and grooms on the farms that will be involved. There are many more immigrants in the large hispanic community here that we depend on to hire for things like lawn care, fence painting, housekeeping, digging trenches for irrigation systems and even recent post hurricane debris cleanup. These jobs don’t have lines of white USA male citizens waiting to apply for them.
You can train a person, but if they don’t have a work ethic, they won’t stick.
Where I live, by and large most adults (and many teens ) who can do a job have found a niche that’s more money for less physical labor. Even recent legal immigrants can do better, without great English skills yet.
The adults who haven’t found a niche often have health issues, physical fitness deficits, mental health issues, or substance abuse. That said, the local race track was running a training program for long term unemployed or street people to become barn help and groom’s. The racetrack is close to downtown.
The bonus about migrant labor is folks tend to come from rural developing countries and have physical capacity, plus the migrant process self selects for people with a get it done mentality. And because they are still socially rooted in their home countries, North American wages seem generous even when low.
In Canada, we don’t have the American issue with undocumented Central American agricultural workers for demographic and geographic reasons.
You can get foreign temporary workers through a federal program, for instance nannies or farm workers or even food service workers. I assume the US has similar though perhaps that’s been suspended.
This is different from the high end work visas for professional and tech people.
Well… it seems like in the current situation, if people are concerned about undocumented workers who care for their horses… it would be best not to put those people into vulnerable situations where they may get swept up in an ICE raid.
Soooo… perhaps that means people should consider paying vulnerable individuals enough so that they can stay back at a private farm, while also paying for grooms and barn workers who do have all necessary legal documentation to travel with the barn to the shows.
In effect, the end result does involve paying more. But at least people horse showing wouldn’t knowingly be putting employees they claim to be concerned about in a precarious position on show grounds.
That’s what I am saying in terms of paying more right now to “help” people.
I first noticed this in the early 1970s in Kentucky as the farm laborers were silently replace by undocumented aliens who would work for pennies, live in a rundown trailer.
I worked internationally for decades each and every country required me to have a work permit for that country good for specific work and given time.
Enjoyed a trip to Canada for trade show where their authorities told me if I did not put the screwdriver down they would deport me… just told them I did not want to be here anyway nor did most of the rest of the companies, the show was only there because the Canadian membership requested it
I can say that if Facebook posts looking for barn help meant this then my area has been having this problem for lots and lots of years.
There is an endless stream of people on Facebook looking for barn help and has been for as long as I can remember.
