HORSE MANURE!
I’m Black, speak Spanish & underpaid: suit
New York’s pioneering Spanish-language horse racing announcer is saying “neigh” to pay inequity.
Luis Grandison, a Black Panamanian who served as the sport’s first full-time Spanish-language announcer in the United States, sued the New York Racing Association on Tuesday, claiming he was paid less than half as much as his white, Englishspeaking counterpart.
Grandison says in his suit filed in Brooklyn Federal Court that he played a vital role reaching horse racing’s Latino audience. Nevertheless, he was paid only $60,000. The NYRA’s English-speaking announcer, Larry Collmus, has an annual salary estimated to be in excess of $200,000, according to the suit.
Longtime horse racing announcer Tom Durkin earned $440,000 in a year before retiring in 2014, the suit states.
“Grandison has performed the exact same primary duty of race calling ... at NYRA in Spanish that his white American counterparts performed in English in the same racetracks, under the same management, using the same oratory skills, and using the same NYRA simulcast network,” the suit reads.
“The only difference between Grandison and, for example, Larry Collmus is that the former is a Black Latino speaking in Spanish whereas the latter is a white American speaking in English. Their primary work duty of race calling was otherwise identical.”
Grandison was furloughed from his job in March at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic and was terminated in June.
Gov. Cuomo allowed horse racing to resume in June without fans.
“The New York Racing Association is proud to have the most diverse broadcast and TV team in the sport of horse racing today, and maintains a fair and equitable workplace. NYRA – like so many businesses across the state and nation – has faced significant financial challenges as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and has been forced to make adjustments to its workforce in order to maintain operations and safeguard its future,” a NYRA spokesman said.
Grandison’s attorney, Louis Pechman, liked the odds to win the case.
“You can’t have a white guy and a Black Latino guy sitting at the track doing the same job and pay the white guy more than twice as much. This lawsuit will not be much of a horse race,” Pechman said.
Grandison started the job in 2014 after working in the industry since the 1970s. Followers of horse racing and the NYRA itself noted that the sport had long needed a permanent Spanish-language announcer, noting much of its fan base speaks Spanish as a first language.
“Thoroughbred racing has a large and dedicated Spanish-speaking base, and we thought this was an important initiative to really enhance and personalize the guest experience. … It’s actually a no-brainer with the following horse racing has in that community,” Dan Silver, then the NYRA’s senior director of television, said in a 2016 interview.
Thanks to Grandison, the NYRA was able to offer simulcasts to tracks in the Caribbean, Central America and South America.
Collmus even joked that Grandison had a larger following among jockeys.
“A lot of our jockeys here speak Spanish, and I’m sure they listen to Luis’ calls more than mine,” Collmus said in an interview cited in the lawsuit.
Grandison requested a raise in writing to his supervisors in August 2018, according to the suit. The request was rejected two months later.
He seeks unspecified damages for discrimination.