http://www.brooklyndowntownstar.com

Dateline : Thursday, July 13, 2006
Old World Training, New York Problems
By Phil Guie

New York City may be getting job centers soon, where undocumented laborers can go to find work. But not everyone views this as a good idea.

One such naysayer is Greenpoint resident David Linker, who retired from a long career crafting designs into wooden furniture. The former ebonist - "master ebonist," no less - said that he believes job centers would only further the exploitation of cheap immigrant labor, putting them to work at tasks they have no business performing. "I'm very concerned about unskilled labor," he told the Ledger/Star. "They aren't versed in safety issues, as we have been trained."

By "we," Linker does not mean Americans in general, but master tradesmen such as himself. Securing the title meant four years of rigorous education at the Derde Technische School in Holland, which featured a program for furniture making. After receiving his diploma at the same age most American youth graduate from high school, he both apprenticed and worked for many years in Holland and France.

What makes the 63-year-old Linker particularly interesting is that he was born in Far Rockaway. He claimed to be the world's only American master ebonist, meaning he both knows his craft and can pass it down to others.
He once served as an advisor for the George Westinghouse School in Brooklyn, helping to turn students thought of as academically unfit into competent craftsmen who now have good jobs. But the experience also left him demoralized by how little stock the New York City Department of Education puts into vocational training. Linker said such indifference could be seen taking root while he was in junior high. "Society was already starting to demean the trades," he said. "They thought it meant you're not smart enough, or that you're not good enough for academics."

Over the years, Linker said that the naysayers have perpetuated the belief that trade schools are fit only for troublemakers. The end result is a veritable absence of certified, skilled tradesmen, with the demand for their work increasingly filled by day laborers, much of it performed by individuals who may not fully understand their craft. This, Linker said, has led to shabby results in areas such as construction.

"I was a restorer of the royal furniture of France," he said. "When your life is all about making things beautiful, it hurts to see a system in place that lets this happen."

That system, which ostensibly charges consumers less while earning more for contractors, directly hurt Linker when he first returned from France. Between 1981 and 2001, he owned part of a woodworking shop at the former Gretsch musical instrument factory on South 5th Street in Williamsburg. However, the glut of cheap labor in rival shops, combined with the lack of local apprentices possessing the technical knowledge he required, eventually convinced him to close.

"I suffered because I couldn't get enough business," he said. "I had 11 trainees and journeymen from France and Italy. Meanwhile, all around me in Williamsburg, shops were hiring undocumented labor and cutting their prices. I had to try and compete with these guys, which ultimately kept me from developing the business the way I would have liked."

Still, the shop did well enough to help him buy his current home, a beautiful row house on India Street in Greenpoint that he partially rents out. "Tradesmen do very, very well," he assured the Leger/Star. "It's just not talked about. Who owned the house in 'Moonstruck?' It was the plumber. But now we've demeaned [the trades]."

Linker has no sure idea of how to solve the problem of undocumented immigrant labor, but said that society would be better served by real vocational training at the high school level, not job centers that allow more of the same.

"There is a great need right now for good tradesmen," he said. "All these [day laborers] are striving to achieve the American Dream. What about those who have lost hope because all they ever heard in life is being a great rap singer, a great athlete, or a great dancer? Why have they never heard about being a good carpenter, electrician, or contractor?"

He is quick to point out that his education was no easy path to success. It included traditional subjects such as geometry and sciences to go along with technical training.

"Academics don't think that tradesmen have a foundation in mathematics or geometry," he said. "But every project starts with a drawing. Like an architect making a house, your drawings are with you all the time."

During an interview for this article, Linker produced a stack of textbooks, including one for drawing. All of them were written in Dutch, which did not make them any less informative. "There is geography, because you have to know what area different trees grow in," Linker said, flipping through pages. "You also have to learn botany to be able to understand wood, to identify it. [You must know] how a tree lives."

Linker doubts that the majority of unskilled workers can match his academic background, much less his passion. In addition, he worries about the potential danger when those who are hired to perform trade work lack education in areas such as safety, which he claims is rudimentary knowledge in Europe. While on a tour of his neighborhood, Linker pointed out a Manhattan Avenue storefront that had been shuttered for renovation. He said that on July 2, while walking past, he spotted a dark liquid seeping into the surrounding partition from within. Since it was a Sunday, he said that the site, usually attended by day laborers, happened to be empty.

He called 311, and the fire department eventually put down absorbent material to sop up the mysterious fluid. However, it struck him as yet another example of untrained workers creating unsafe situations. "Why should [there be] something behind the door coming into the sidewalk?" he said. "If you have cans of tar out, you should close them up to make sure whatever's in them doesn't seep out."