Visa limits create looming labor shortage in horse racing industry

[Augenj]

Sounds ominous to me.

“The cap is going to hit at the end of February,” said Velie, whose Oklahoma practice represents more than 50 trainers. “When it does, the employers are going to have a choice between shutting their doors or breaking the law.”

http://www.courier-journal.com/story...ivan/97722972/

[Inner Dirt]

This statement from the article sums it up "You can’t find Americans to cut grass.”

It seems we have generations of parents that baby their kids and don't teach them the value of hard work. It could be generational or the area I grew up in but if my friends and I wanted anything more than food, shelter, and clothes we had to work for it. When I was growing up no one that had a boy hired a gardener that was the kid's job. I had chores from the age of 5. If you were a boy earning money to get your first car at 16 became a priority once you hit teenage years.

Today I know kids that never worked a lick or had any chores all through High School, 18 with no car, driver's license or any life skills. They are adults that are about as mature as a 10 year old from 40 years ago.

[Augenj]

Originally Posted by Inner Dirt

This statement from the article sums it up "You can’t find Americans to cut grass.”

It seems we have generations of parents that baby their kids and don't teach them the value of hard work. It could be generational or the area I grew up in but if my friends and I wanted anything more than food, shelter, and clothes we had to work for it. When I was growing up no one that had a boy hired a gardener that was the kid's job. I had chores from the age of 5. If you were a boy earning money to get your first car at 16 became a priority once you hit teenage years.

.

That was my experience growing up too.

[SuperPickle]

Originally Posted by Inner Dirt

This statement from the article sums it up "You can’t find Americans to cut grass.”

It seems we have generations of parents that baby their kids and don't teach them the value of hard work. It could be generational or the area I grew up in but if my friends and I wanted anything more than food, shelter, and clothes we had to work for it. When I was growing up no one that had a boy hired a gardener that was the kid's job. I had chores from the age of 5. If you were a boy earning money to get your first car at 16 became a priority once you hit teenage years.

Today I know kids that never worked a lick or had any chores all through High School, 18 with no car, driver's license or any life skills. They are adults that are about as mature as a 10 year old from 40 years ago.

That's not untrue but it's only half the story.

Jobs like picking fruit, busing tables, grooming horses, meat packing and landscaping have been "illegal immigrant jobs" for 40-50 years now. You can't change that over night.

Also these industries are scaled to need immigrant labor. It's not that Americans won't pack meat or cut lawns they won't do it for $8-$10 an hour. They want $15.

So unless you adjust the wages and benefits they're not going to do the work. Or to put it this way eliminating the labor pool doesn't fix anything.

So yes Americans do think they're too good to do this work but also these industries are scaled to need immigrant labor.

[thaskalos]

And yet...the Americans cry that the Mexicans are "taking their jobs".

[linrom1]

This is BS. There is no shortage of labor. In fact, there are 94 million Americans out of the labor force.

This is just neoliberal propaganda. There is no LAW that says that business must be able to cull the world to maximize their profits. It's only in corrupt crony-capitalist world run by corporatists that business can socialize costs and privatize profits.

Let them go out business. Why should I pay for Baffert's or Dale Roman's yachts and million dollar lifestyles.

[dilanesp]

Originally Posted by Inner Dirt

This statement from the article sums it up "You can’t find Americans to cut grass.”

It seems we have generations of parents that baby their kids and don't teach them the value of hard work. It could be generational or the area I grew up in but if my friends and I wanted anything more than food, shelter, and clothes we had to work for it. When I was growing up no one that had a boy hired a gardener that was the kid's job. I had chores from the age of 5. If you were a boy earning money to get your first car at 16 became a priority once you hit teenage years.

Today I know kids that never worked a lick or had any chores all through High School, 18 with no car, driver's license or any life skills. They are adults that are about as mature as a 10 year old from 40 years ago.

Why would a rich society filled with workers who can commakd $25 an hour force its workers to do $9 an hour work?

[rsetup]

Originally Posted by dilanesp

Why would a rich society filled with workers who can commakd $25 an hour force its workers to do $9 an hour work?

Because that society doesn't want the Mexicans doing it?

Ask the college educated whites.

[HuggingTheRail]

Originally Posted by Inner Dirt

This statement from the article sums it up "[b][i]You can’t find Americans to cut grass.”

But you can find some to smoke it....

[SuperPickle]

Originally Posted by linrom1

This is BS. There is no shortage of labor. In fact, there are 94 million Americans out of the labor force.

This is just neoliberal propaganda. There is no LAW that says that business must be able to cull the world to maximize their profits. It's only in corrupt crony-capitalist world run by corporatists that business can socialize costs and privatize profits.

Let them go out business. Why should I pay for Baffert's or Dale Roman's yachts and million dollar lifestyles.

Ummmm I'm pretty sure "neoliberal propaganda" isn't a real thing. Just a crazy twitter term.

However what is real is industries like food processing, landscaping, horse racing etc are. If landscapers had to pay employees 80% more they'd have to charge people 80% more. If had to pay food processing employees more it would dramatically cause the price of food to increase. If day rates for trainers went up $25-$50 a day owners would leave the game.

So it's not the lack of domestic labor it's the wages tied to the industries.

[johnhannibalsmith]

I've posted it before, our local HBPA had to put out ads in the employment part of the newspaper to attempt to hire local citizens as a stipulation of the visa (H2B, I believe) worker program. I loved to run into the handful or so of people that would show up at the stable gate around 10 or 11 am on my way out in the golf cart after the ads ran in the paper. Most only needed to learn that it was seven days a week and you had to be to work by 5 am for most barns before they were doing a donut back out the way they came. But now and then a few would attempt boot camp, seemed like it had to be a condition of parole or something they generally seemed so enthusiastic and the simple fact is that if it isn't something you either are good at or really enjoy doing, you just aren't going to make it.

You can cling to some belief otherwise, but when a dozen fresh Mexicans show up to work on the backside, a dozen Mexicans show up and do their job and are a benefit. When a dozen of these native workers show up after reading an advertisement, I'm thinking you'd do well to wind up with one that sticks around and is a benefit based on what I've seen. It's basically just a formality since it's pretty much a given that people who want to work the job would be there looking and those are the only types that will make it when Wendy's is a whole lot easier for someone that just needs a job... eventually.

[cato]

This is kind of funny. I love this...
"This is just neoliberal propaganda." [HUH?]....

"There is no LAW that says that business must be able to cull the world to maximize their profits." [While there is no LAW, it's actually kind of the concept of capitalism]

"It's only in corrupt crony-capitalist world run by corporatists that business can socialize costs and privatize profits." [Huh?]

And I'm, pretty sure Dale Romans does not have a yacht, although you never know about Baffert. But changes in wages and the quality and reliability of workers won't really hurt the Bafferts and Romans of the world - just everyone that is working their ass off to just get by.

[ultracapper]

He seems to hate liberals and capitalists. Does that leave you with right-wing communists? I don't even know what that would look like.

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by SuperPickle

Ummmm I'm pretty sure "neoliberal propaganda" isn't a real thing. Just a crazy twitter term.

However what is real is industries like food processing, landscaping, horse racing etc are. If landscapers had to pay employees 80% more they'd have to charge people 80% more. If had to pay food processing employees more it would dramatically cause the price of food to increase. If day rates for trainers went up $25-$50 a day owners would leave the game.

So it's not the lack of domestic labor it's the wages tied to the industries.

The issue is real in horse racing. I already had this conversation with my own trainer 2 months ago. He was concerned.

What you are suggesting is also correct.

But there is a flip side to it. Yes, if the cost of labor went up consumers would have to pay more for goods and services and a few owners might drop out, some people might start doing their own landscaping etc.. but more US citizens would take those jobs because they would offer a decent wage. So there would be fewer US citizens collecting welfare, food stamps, medicaid etc...

There is no perfect answer to this. There are winners and losers in all of these things. Most of the rest of it is just an argument about who the winners and losers should be and which political party is lying to us about it worse.

[cato]

And here's a pretty good example of Mexicans and immigrants taking US jobs (which, just to be clear is "neoconservative jibberish").

Here's the deal, I was in high school 40 (okay maybe 45) years ago - you know when times were tough and we weren't, uh, spoiled. I worked a lot - had chores around the house and then grabbed a newspaper route at the age of 10. Got a job at a golf course at the age of 12 which sounds great but I was somewhat disappointed to learn that I was the janitor...mainly because they could not get an adult to show up on a regular basis (sober) at the wages they were paying me.

Anyway, time marches on. It's summer and my friends and I needed some money and one friend (Jack) says hey my uncle has a farm and they need workers to pick the watermelons. WTF - thought it would be a hoot and we could do it a week or two. Make $1 an hour and pocket a cool $8 - $10 bucks a day. So we made the 2 hour drive south, ready to work. Showed up that morning and looked around the field -- we were the only anglos there. No problem we were treated warmly and kindly although with some suspicion.

Work started. The first hour of picking watermelons was interesting although a little warm...but not too warm since we started about 7:30 am. But as the sun rose and the heat increased and the watermelons kept getting caught and tossed and caught and tossed I thought I was going to die...and that was about 9:30 am. By about 10:30 am I was hoping I'd die. Finally we had a lunch break and I collapsed under a shady tree, thankfully eating the bolgna sandwich and drinking the water the gave me. I was trying to figure out what the heck to do for the afternoon and the next week or two - becuase I wasn't sure I'd survive. I really had no solution - other than to quit or suffer. Thanks the good Lord my friend Jack developed a combination of heat stroke, vomiting and diarrhea all at the same time - much to his pain and horror and the entertainment of the rest of the crowd (workers and bosses). After the laughter subsided they helped him to a room and he was pretty much passed out the rest of the day.

I somehow staggered through the rest of the day and stumbled into the room where Jack and I were staying and heard the happiest words I've ever heard up to that point (and maybe after) - Jack said "Frank, I can't do this any more, I'm really sick. Let's get out of here tomorrow." I acted like I wasn't sure and kind of needed the money but I was, in fact, the happiest kid in the world to collect our $10 and get the hell out of there.

And here's the deal - at that time in my life I was an athlete for lack of a better word - weightlifter, wrestler, ran 5-10 miles a day...and that day shredded me. I would never do that work again and like I said earlier - there were no Anglos to be seen in the fields. The farmer would have been glad to hire them...no one wanted those jobs and no one ever will unless they have no other options or its an upgrade to what they currently have.

I'd really like to see the folks who claim the kids today are lazy, spoiled etc. - and that these jobs are being stolen by immigrants -- you guys and gals need to go pick watermelons in southern Oklahoma for a day or two (I would be glad to make the arrangements) and re-think the issue.

Cheers, Frank (who is still thankful to this today that I only had one day of working the fields)

(and by the way I'm not here to fight with anyone - I think its just easy to have a knee-jerk reaction to some of these issues that is not necessarily connected to the reality of the situation...