Tulsa Business In Trouble Because Of Immigration

The immigration issue isn't just a topic for debate for one Tulsa business owner. As News on 6 business reporter Steve Berg explains, Randy Sissom is about to lose his business. <br/><br/>Sissom

Monday, May 1st 2006, 10:33 am

By: News On 6

The immigration issue isn't just a topic for debate for one Tulsa business owner. As News on 6 business reporter Steve Berg explains, Randy Sissom is about to lose his business.

Sissom Masonry owner Randy Sissom has a worker shortage. There's plenty of workers. They just don't want to work for him. "When a worker comes by and I have to ask for a green card or a Social Security card and they ask if I want to hold out taxes, then they don't want to have anything to do with it."

But Sissom believes other companies are hiring illegal immigrants and he says he can't compete with that. "They don't have to pay insurances, workman's comp, general liability, or pay personal taxes, and that gives a tremendous advantage price wise."

And he says government enforcement is laughable. When he's had workers whose numbers don't match up, the Social Security Administration sends a letter telling him to have the employee contact the Social Security Office to resolve the issue.

Steve Berg: "Once they've sent the letter, do they ever follow-up on it and say, hey, this employee never checked in." Randy: "no, no, no. Y'know, if it doesn't match, then there's just really nothing that they can do and then they also tell me that if I discriminate against that employee for giving me false documentation then I can be penalized for it."

So Sissom had come up against the proverbial brick wall. And he says he laughs when people say Americans don't want to do this kind of work. "I love this kind of work, I've done it since I was 16-years-old and I would love to still keep doing it, but y'know whenever I drive around for a month, month-and-a-half at a time and can't find any work, I'm going to have to eventually look into something else."

Sissom says he's going to school full-time and plans on getting out of the bricklaying business as soon as possible.