Life Grim for State’s Racetrack Workers

Behind the grandstands and opulent turf clubs, workers who take care of horses at California’s racetracks inhabit a dusty, isolated world where normal labor and living standards don’t apply.

They often work every day of the week without overtime. Most live in small equipment rooms in the stables, with plywood walls, bare concrete floors and no running water.

In Pomona, they sleep and cook on county property under Fire Department signs warning: “Use as Living Quarters and Cooking Prohibited.” At Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, they use filthy communal restrooms infested with flies and deemed unsanitary by the health department.

The stable areas at California’s six racetracks and nine fairgrounds lack some of the most basic employee protections for approximately 4,000 workers, records and interviews show.

This situation is no accident. The horse-racing industry has long enjoyed exemptions from labor and living regulations that apply to other California workers, including farm workers.

For the last 25 years, horse racing has been exempt from state employee housing standards, making it the only industry whose living quarters can’t be inspected or regulated by state housing officials. Horsemen also are effectively excused from paying overtime. They say they need that exclusion to accommodate the unique requirements and working conditions of the stable area, called the backstretch.

While many of them acknowledge that the workers are underpaid, they say wages are low because of razor-thin profit margins and growing competition from Indian casinos, card clubs and the state lottery.

Despite the pinch, the horsemen point to improvements for their work force. Two years ago, the owners of the Bay Meadows Racetrack in San Mateo built a new 53-room dormitory for the backstretch. And the new owner of Santa Anita recently renovated recreational facilities for on-site employees. There are also a small pension fund and two free medical clinics, one in Northern California and one at Santa Anita.

“Most of our people are quite socially conscious,” said former state Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp, a horse owner and president of the California Thoroughbred Owners Assn.

But a review of government documents, interviews with more than 150 officials and employees, and visits to the backstretches of eight horse-racing venues have found neglect and Third World conditions. Among the findings:

* State officials discovered last month that the industry’s 13-year-old overtime exclusion may be invalid under federal law, leaving the industry liable to pay a potential fortune in back wages to its lowliest workers. According to Andy Barron, executive director of the state Industrial Welfare Commission: “The ramifications are huge.”

* The state Labor Commission hasn’t investigated the stables for more than a decade to see if minimum wages are being paid. The California Horse Racing Board, whose five members are appointed by the governor, licenses all parties in the sport, but its contact with the stable employees usually consists of fining them for unruly behavior.

* Local health officials said they were unaware that humans were living in the stables. After being contacted by The Times, Los Angeles County authorities initiated inspections, ordered dozens of workers moved out of the Pomona Fairplex within the next two weeks and declared most of the 600 converted rooms at Santa Anita unfit for humans, ordering that they be fixed up by the end of May.

Robert Tourtelot, a prominent Los Angeles defense attorney and chairman of the California Horse Racing Board, said he was unaware of the inspections.

“If somebody brought to my attention deplorable conditions, I would be concerned,” said Tourtelot, adding that he’d need a formal complaint before he would act.

George Nicholaw, general manager of KNX-AM radio and former board chairman, said no one has alerted the agency to problems in the stables. “All I can say is that I have some trust in people treating other people well . . . I find it hard to believe that an employee would work for an employer who would not treat them well,” he said.

‘The Bathrooms Are Unsanitary’

Los Angeles County officials, meanwhile, said they don’t bear responsibility for the conditions at Fairplex, which is leased to a private operator. “The nature of the lease that we have with the fair is that they are in charge,” said Sharon Yonashiro, assistant administrative officer in charge of the county’s real estate.

At Santa Anita, where the track and stands recently underwent a $45-million renovation, the backstretch remains a pueblo of more than 1,000 people, with goats and flies, dirt roads and characters that could come from a John Steinbeck novel--toothless old hands, hard-drinking drifters and diligent family men far from their home soil.

“They should do something about these conditions,” said Johnnie Gholston, 65, who has worked the backstretch for more than 30 years. “The bathrooms are unsanitary. Everything is just bad. They should have laws against it.”

But few speak for the stable hands in Sacramento, where the laws are made. By contrast, the track operators, who provide the venue and stables, and the horsemen, who provide the sport, have made the horse-racing industry a potent lobbying force in the state capital. The industry spent $1.45 million on campaign contributions and $1.15 million for lobbying in 1998, according to the political watchdog group Common Cause. That year, it lobbied for and won a $40-million tax reduction on annual gambling proceeds, which last year were $749 million out of more than $3.8 billion wagered.

At the top of the horseman hierarchy are the horse owners. Some may be celebrities or sheiks who own several horses, and others may be partners in a single steed. For all of them, a winning horse can bring in hundreds of thousands a year, while the average horse can be a money loser.

The owners hire horse trainers, who charge between $1,500 and $2,500 a month per horse. The trainers in turn hire the backstretch workers--hot-walkers, who cool down the horses after races, and grooms, who act as the horses’ personal attendants.

Grooms clean, feed, medicate and saddle the animals. They pack their hooves, bandage their legs, rub liniment on their throbbing muscles and shovel their waste. They work roughly from 5 a.m. until 11 a.m., then come back for one or two hours in the afternoon. On racing days, they might work all day and into the night.

Among the mostly immigrant population on the backstretch, more than 15% are there illegally, industry insiders say. And in all, more than half of the estimated 4,000 grooms and hot-walkers--about 2,200--live on-site at California racetracks, officials estimate.

The last time they drew attention was in 1985, after a series of government raids at Del Mar Fairgrounds, the well-known Northern San Diego County venue “where the turf meets the surf.”

The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service arrested 123 workers and scattered hundreds more. Television news crews captured the conditions of the stables, spawning at least one bill in Sacramento to bring the industry under state housing regulation. The bill died in the face of industry opposition.

Later in 1985, state and federal labor officials moved in to audit the racetrack’s books. They found widespread overtime violations and ordered 19 trainers to pay $241,243 in back wages to their grooms, state legislative records show.

The industry turned to then-state Sen. Ken Maddy (R-Fresno), a horse-racing aficionado himself, who sponsored a bill that effectively repealed those penalties and reclassified the grooms as a category unto themselves--agricultural employees allowed to work 56 hours a week without overtime. Industry officials said they needed the exclusion because caring for horses requires odd hours and split shifts.

The provision made the grooms the only agricultural workers in California who can work seven days straight, year-round, without overtime, according to legislative analysts.

Since then, the state Labor Commissioner has not looked into wage conditions in the stable areas, officials said.

“We don’t have the staff and the resources to get out and get into every place that we should,” said Miles Locker, chief legal counsel for the California Labor Commission.

Locker said the commission would investigate the stables if it received complaints from racetrack employees. But like many immigrants, they say they stay quiet out of fear of being fired, blackballed or even deported.

Because trainers and their employees follow the racing circuit to different tracks throughout the year, the wages have little or no connection to the actual venue.

Some big-name trainers pay grooms up to $400 a week, give them a day off and offer them 1% of the purse if their horse wins--an unwritten rule, unevenly followed. A recent industry survey of a handful of trainers indicated grooms make at least the minimum wage, averaging $324 a week.

But a dozen backstretch employees and some industry insiders told The Times that workers often receive less than minimum wage. They produced pay stubs to bolster their claims, but it was impossible to calculate exact wages because their hours are not recorded.

“There were a lot of people getting paid $3 an hour or less,” said Luisa Flores, a former worker at Bay Meadows in San Mateo, now a college student. “I started talking to other guys back there, telling them, ‘Even if you don’t have your [immigration] papers, you still have rights.’ ”

At nearby Golden Gate Fields, set on a windy spit of the east San Francisco Bay, Larry Backman earns $28 a day in cash as a groom, whether he works six hours or 15, he says.

“I told my boss I wanted to get paid for [the overtime],” Backman said. “He said: No, it’s part of the job.”

Backman, 50, says he has been working at tracks since he returned from Vietnam, and he considers himself one step above homeless. His room is in an old wooden stable--hard against Interstate 80--with a filthy concrete floor and paint coming off in sheets. He’s got some books, clothes, boots without laces, and a dirty mattress next to a pile of cigarette butts.

Repeated attempts to reach Backman’s boss, trainer Joe Ortiz, were unsuccessful.

Mary Ellen Mitchell, who was recently laid off as administrator of Santa Anita’s medical clinic, confirmed the low wages, some of which she said are paid in cash. “They’re working seven days a week, and when you figure it out, they’re often making, like, $3 an hour,” she said.

Van de Kamp said his owners association conducted a random survey of wages last year. “There are no records,” he said. “I don’t think the hours were closely watched. . . . We couldn’t draw any definitive conclusions about what they were making.”

Other industry officials said they are unaware of any minimum wage violations, although they concede backstretch workers are poorly paid.

“They’re probably the lowest paid in any business,” said Nobel Threewitt, president emeritus of the California Thoroughbred Trainers association, adding that the industry’s thin margin prevents wages from going up. Even modest raises might cripple the industry, others say.

“The amount of money that runs through the [horse-racing] economy and the amount of people it employs is in danger of extinction,” said Ed Halpern, president of the association representing the trainers.

But the horsemen say the workers’ financial burdens have been eased by two medical clinics paid for out of unclaimed betting tickets and a pension fund paid by a percentage of the purse. They acknowledge, however, that membership in the pension fund has been frozen for five years and that only 388 workers are drawing benefits, although it has been established since the 1970s.

As a result of the low wages, many grooms say they can’t rent apartments. Instead, they live on the backstretches, the conditions of which vary significantly at the different venues.

Horse tracks won an exemption from state employee housing standards in 1975. Track owners say they need the exemption because the space is free and the grooms are not their employees.

“Bottom line is, they’re not our employees,” said Jeff True, spokesman for Los Alamitos. “No one is paying to live back there.”

But trainers often want their grooms to live near the horses to act fast if the expensive animals develop potentially serious problems like colic.

The horsemen proudly point to the new dormitory at Bay Meadows, built in 1998. But it was San Mateo city officials, not the track, who ordered the new quarters after they took a tour of the racetrack and were shocked at the living quarters.

“The conditions were unreal,” said San Mateo City Councilwoman Sue Lempert. “There were rats and vermin. It was not American housing. It was Third World housing. . . . They had a roof, but little more than that.”

Grooms Live in Tack Rooms

Substandard conditions continue to exist elsewhere, The Times found. At the Pomona Fairplex, located on Los Angeles County property, grooms live in rooms that feature splintered wooden walls, concrete floors--and county Fire Department signs over the doors prohibiting use as living quarters. Some grooms have lived there for at least two years, with refrigerators, dogs, old couches outside their rooms and even bird cages mounted on the walls.

At Santa Anita, grooms live in 600 tack rooms--equipment areas--that are 12 feet square. Some are lit by single dangling lightbulbs and have single electrical outlets--often overloaded with a microwave, hot plate, television, refrigerator, heater and extension cords.

Bathrooms are scattered throughout the area as if in a campground. They are filthy and filled with used toilet paper and flies, although officials say they are cleaned every day.

After inquiries from The Times, Los Angeles County health inspectors viewed the backstretches of the two tracks, as well as Hollywood Park in Inglewood. “We thought only animals were living there,” said Arturo Aguirre, a Los Angeles County environmental health deputy.

Citing serious health violations, inspectors last month ordered about 100 backstretch workers to be moved out of Pomona. George Bradvica, Fairplex’s equine manager, said operators have tried to discourage grooms and hot-walkers from living on site, but were aware that some did.

At Santa Anita, inspectors also found hundreds of tack rooms used as living quarters, but there were city permits for only 12 to be used for human habitation. Inspectors gave Santa Anita track officials until May 29 to bring the areas into compliance with local building standards or make the employees move. Santa Anita officials said they are working to bring them up to standards into compliance and will invest at least $400,000 for upgrades this summer.

Brent Latta, general operator of Santa Anita, said that his backstretch is one of the best in the state and that the new owner, auto parts giant Frank Stronach, plans to rebuild the entire stable area at some point.

“Tell me how many other businesses provide living quarters at all,” he said.

Aguirre, however, said he had seen better migrant housing on farms in the Central Valley.

“Unfortunately, people often think if you’re giving them something better than they’re used to, it’s OK,” Aguirre said of employers who hire poor immigrants. “It’s not.”

He added that Hollywood Park did not have serious problems.

The decaying state of Golden Gate Fields’ backstretch has been the subject of concern for years and prompted a warning to the horse-racing board in 1995 from thoroughbred owners.

Last September Van de Kamp complained a second time to the board about leaking gas, rotting roofs, faulty wiring and decrepit barns. “This is our concern, that unless some changes are made immediately on the back side, we have a dangerous situation for human health, for equine health and safety . . .” he wrote, quoting the group’s criticisms made four years before.

It wasn’t until this year that a number of fixes were made, after Stronach’s company, Magna International, bought the Berkeley track.

Other tracks have not come under any scrutiny.

Lacking Records of Wages, Hours

In Cypress, community development director Alice Angus said there are no records that building inspectors have visited Los Alamitos Racetrack since the city was incorporated in 1956. The cinder-block rooms there are smaller than at Santa Anita.

Until recent county inspections of Pomona, Santa Anita and Hollywood Park, the only active oversight of the backstretch has fallen on the horse racing board, which oversees all aspects of the industry. The board appoints stewards to serve as arbiters at each track.

A review of the stewards’ meetings in Southern California for 1999, however, shows they have limited interaction with grooms and hot-walkers--mainly to fine them.

One groom, for example, was fined $425 last summer at Del Mar for playing a radio too loudly.

When a female groom told the stewards she quit a job at Hollywood Park because the boss was paying only $20 a day, no action was taken against the employer. And out of scores of cases involving backstretch personnel last year, only two involved wages--both concerning employers who allegedly refused to pay.

Tom Ward, one of the stewards in the case of the female groom, said he didn’t remember the woman’s complaint about pay but added that there are often no records to back up such allegations. “There’s a lot of casual labor back there, paid in cash,” he said.

Ward acknowledged things are tough for the workers. “Long hours, low wages, tough living conditions. It’s certainly not what you want.”

Yet earlier this year, horse trainers mobilized to preserve their overtime exemption. A new state overtime law mandated that the state’s Industrial Welfare Commission decide whether the exemption should be continued. At a Feb. 25 public hearing of the commission in San Francisco, trainers spoke out to keep the exemption. Not a single worker showed up to testify or submit a letter challenging the exclusion.

Overtime Waiver Questioned

Commission members appeared willing to keep the exemption alive for another year. Then, in late March, they were informed by U.S. Department of Labor officials that the federal labor code does not classify grooms and other racetrack workers as agricultural employees. That throws into question the state’s overtime exemption, which was granted on the premise that the racetrack employees are agricultural workers.

“The federal labor law does not exempt grooms from the provision of being paid overtime at time and a half,” said Jerry Hall, spokesman for the U.S. Labor Department.

Hall and other officials also said the recent development raises the possibility that the trainers may owe back pay to the grooms for at least two years.

The fate of the grooms has attracted the attention of the Service Employees International Union. The union--which organized the Los Angeles janitors’ strike this month--already represents racetrack security guards, parimutuel clerks and other “front side” employees, and is hoping to organize the stables as well.

“The conditions in which these people work have not changed in years,” said Allen Davenport, a staff lobbyist for the SEIU.

How receptive the workers will be is hard to predict. People like Ramon, a 61-year-old grandfather and hot-walker at Hollywood Park, say they put up with the gritty life because they’re better off than they were in Latin America. He lives in a clean cinder-block room in the stables, complete with a skillet, a mattress and his clothes hung from pegs on the wall.

Ramon sees his wife--who lives at their home in Michoacan, Mexico--one month every year, he says. As is true for many of the workers, Ramon’s lifeline is a calling card and the grubby pay phone by the cafeteria. To explain why he stays, he flips to a picture of his house, which has no floor and a security wall crowned with broken beer bottles.

“For a poor person, this is pride,” he said. “I could never afford this working in Mexico.”

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Backstretch Worker Connections

Here are the people and groups that affect backstretch workers:

*

A governor-appointed horse-racing board monitors the industry. The board appoints three stewards for each racing meet to adjudicate disputes on the track. Backstretch workers can complain to stewards, but worker contact with officials usually consists of being fined for unruly behavior.

*

The California Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Foundation, a

nonprofit group, provides medical clinics and some social programs for stable employees. Medical care is usually paid for by grants and a share of unclaimed winning tickets.

*

Horse owners contract with horse trainers to care for their animals. Trainers hire grooms, hot-walkers, exercise riders and night watchmen.

*

Track owners and operators provide stables and tack rooms to the horse trainers, who, in turn, give the rooms to the backstretch employees to live in.

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California Horse Racing

Of the 15 horse-racing venues licensed by the state, five are racetracks that feature thoroughbreds only. A sixth, Los Alamitos, has quarter horse and harness racing. Those tracks are marked below with black squares. Nine fairs, indicated by numerals, host various breeds or harness racing.

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Racetrack Betting

More than $3.8 billion is bet annually at California’s racetracks. Roughly 80% of that is returned to the gamblers. The remaining “takeout,” which was $749 million last year, is divided up by numerous groups, as per state law. The chart shows where the money goes.

*

Other states’ takeout for out-of-state betting: $0.30

*

Horsemen purses: $0.21

Track commission: $0.21

Off-track wagering facilities: $0.12

State license fee: $0.08

Other: $0.08

Source: California Horse Racing Board