Legislators Hope to Fix Racetrack Problems

The chairman of a state Assembly committee that oversees horse racing vowed Monday to fix poor labor and living conditions in the stables of California’s racetracks.

“No one wants people to live in squalor,” said Assemblyman Herb Wesson (D-Culver City), reacting to a Times story that documented persistent and widespread problems there. “I don’t see this being put on the back burner. We need to rectify this.”

A spokesman for State Sen. Don Perata (D-Alameda), who heads the senate Governmental Organization Committee, said Perata also plans to sit down with officials in the industry and work out a plan to clean up the area called the backstretch.

“They’re going to have to come together and deal with this because nobody disputes there are bad conditions,” said Mark Capitolo, press secretary for Perata, who he said has been aware of many of the problems on the backstretch.

The Times reported Sunday that the stable areas of California’s six racetracks and nine fairgrounds lack some of the most basic employee protections. The horse racing industry enjoys exemptions from state overtime and housing laws that apply to other employees, including farm workers.

Across the state, backstretch employees often work seven days a week with no overtime pay. After an inquiry from The Times, the Los Angeles County Health Department found unsanitary and substandard conditions at Santa Anita and Fairplex in Pomona.

Wesson said Monday the account of conditions on the backstretch “blew my mind.” He has visited numerous racetracks since he recently became chairman of the Governmental Organization Committee, but was given a tour only at the stables at Bay Meadows in San Mateo, where a dormitory was built two years ago and a major effort was made to clean up the area.

Wesson said he was optimistic that the Service Employees International Union, which is negotiating with horse trainers to organize the backstretch, will bring improvements for the mostly immigrant work force. But he said he will begin making calls today to various industry groups to push the issue.

Part of the problem is that on the backstretch, the complicated nature of the industry obscures the chain of responsibility. The backstretch employees are hired by horse trainers, who use stables and equipment rooms provided by the tracks.

Many of those rooms are then given to the employees to live in, even though the rooms usually lack habitation permits. Because the rooms are exempt from state housing laws, the conditions vary widely. The tracks argue that they don’t need to provide better facilities because the workers are not their employees.

As for the wages, the industry won an 1987 exclusion that allows pay for the employees--hot walkers, who cool down the horses after races, and grooms, who feed and clean the horses--at regular wages for as much as 56 hours a week. In a recent twist, the U.S. Labor Department has informed state officials that the 13-year-old exclusion is at odds with federal law, which says the workers should get overtime for anything in excess of 40 hours a week.

Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) said Monday that, as chairman of the lower house’s Labor and Employment Committee, he would begin making inquiries about the wages. “In California, there ought to be a basic standards,” said Steinberg. “The article raised a lot of questions and concerns about whether this standard is being met for these employees.”

Ed Halpern, president of the California Thoroughbred Trainers Assn., said the trainers have done what they can to improve the workers’ lot, but just can’t pay more. He said they operate a snack bar at Santa Anita, for example, that loses money every year.

On Monday, Halpern took issue with the description of the backstretch by The Times, which he said failed to note that many of the workers enjoy the backstretch, despite its shortcomings, because they simply love horses.

“Most like the life. Otherwise they wouldn’t be back there,” he said. “As angry as I am about the tone of the article, I’m hoping that it gets people to think about what we can do to make life better for these people.”