This is a follow up to a story from last year

http://www.newsok.com/article/3017858

By Judy Gibbs Robinson
Staff Writer
SULPHUR — Four men stretched leather over wooden saddle forms one recent afternoon at Billy Cook Harness & Saddle, while a half-dozen women hand-tooled leather pieces in the next room.

But in a dim corner, a second production line stood idle — as it has most of the time since immigration agents raided the downtown factory Aug. 2, arresting 51 illegal workers. All were either deported to Mexico or are awaiting deportation proceedings.

Owner Billy Cook avoided prosecution and fines. But six months after the raid, he stands at the collision point between national outrage over an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants and the need for low-wage workers in a high-employment economy. The shape of federal immigration policy that emerges from the wreck could determine whether Cook and other small manufacturers survive.

The saddle factory had 75 employees the day of the raid, 24 the day after. Officially, Cook has replaced 26 of the 51 lost workers.

But he has hired many more than that over the past six months.

"They come and they go. They may stay one day, two days, a week. Or you hire them and they don't show up,” Cook said.

He has advertised in area newspapers for jobs that pay $6 an hour to start, with a 50-cent raise and health insurance after 90 days.

He makes no apology for offering so little to unskilled workers he has to train: "You're losing money at $6 an hour. They're not productive for five or six months in this business.”

Cook is searching for help in a county with a 2.9 percent unemployment rate — sixth-lowest in the state.

Low unemployment rates put upward pressure on wages, and businesses that cannot afford to pay more can get left behind, said Lynn Gray, chief economist for the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission.

"Some businesses are not going to be competitive at the going wage rate, and they're not going to be able to do business there,” Gray said.

Without enough trained workers, saddle production has fallen 40 percent from last year, and Cook said he hopes to just break even.

But he insists his business will make it: "We're going to put this thing back together.”

Ripple effect
The raid had a ripple effect through the economy of this Murray County town of 5,000, where Billy Cook Harness & Saddle was one of the largest employers.

"You can't lose that many people out of the work force and out of the community without it having an impact,” said Shelly Sawatzky, director of the Sulphur Chamber of Commerce. "You're looking at rentals. You're looking at gas ... groceries ... laundry soap ... the schools,” she said, her voice trailing off.

Before the raid, Cook was putting $35,000 a week on the street in after-tax payroll.

Today it is about half that, he said.

There also was an emotional toll. The 51 deported workers made up almost a quarter of Sulphur's Hispanic population — 230 at the last census. Some of those left behind went into hiding for a while, Sawatzky said.

Non-Hispanics business owners were worried about the issue, too.

"There's businesses that felt like they were being watched after that time,” she said.

Bob Moline heard employers could be fined $10,000 per illegal worker and decided he could take no chances. He fired three Mexicans working at Bob Moline's Oxbow Saddlery two blocks down Muskogee Street from Billy Cook's shop.

"I had to let them go,” Moline said. "They were undocumented. I knew that.”

Six months later, Moline's saddle shop is empty.

"You can't replace them. They're gone, and there are no more,” Moline said.

Moline has other business ventures and prefers to let his saddle shop sit idle than to train new workers.

Cook has no choice.

Since he got into saddle-making in 1945, he's grown his business into an internationally recognized brand.

"They literally are one of the things that's put Sulphur on the map,” Sawatzky said. "You go anywhere in the world and say ‘Billy Cook's saddle' and they say ‘Sulphur, Oklahoma.'”

Skilled labor
Last year, the little factory turned out about 8,000 hand-made, hand-tooled saddles — the fanciest selling for $7,000 apiece.

Each one takes a week to complete in a process involving leather and silver work, rawhide braiding, cutting and sewing.

Learning each job takes time, and some of the workers seized in the raid had been there 10 years.

"They were good people. Some of them had kids born here. That's a funny thing to me — we send citizens back and we're accepting foreigners in all the time. I don't think that's right,” Cook said.

Hundreds of employers nationwide faced criminal charges last year for hiring illegal workers and related offenses.

Cook was not charged because his workers showed him authentic-looking Social Security or "green” cards indicating eligibility to work.

"You look at those cards and you can't tell they're false. Immigration can't even tell theirself, that's how good they're put together,” he said.

Now Cook goes a step further than the law requires: His staff uses a computer to check Social Security numbers against the government's online database to find out right away if they are valid.

Meanwhile, he keeps an eye on the national immigration debate, predicting Congress will pass a law this year that recognizes the estimated 12 million undocumented workers already here and the employers who need them.

"They can't pick them all up. No way. They don't have enough manpower. So I think this next year we'll have an immigration law that everybody will know where we're at,” he said.