It is a fight to level the playing field to be able to compete for jobs and careers on the basis of skills and make available apprentice training to all. In 1973 Al Percy launched a class action lawsuit to give workers like him a chance to better their lot in life. It would also ensure the availability of skilled workers to build the infrastructure of the future.
envisioned by President Lyndon Johnson upon the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the adoption of Presidential EO 11246. 132. In the PercyAction, Percy sought to be admitted into the apprenticeship program for himself together with the thousands of persons identified by Judge Lasker in 1974 as the Class. 133. The training that the Class was and is seeking is apprenticeship involving paid on-the-job training coupled with related classroom instruction. 134. “I am still trapped in my own black skin”, Percy said and asked why in all these years, apprenticeship envisioned by Abraham Lincoln did not come to pass. Percy was forgotten, Percy said: "all I was looking for is to gain the skills to be able to compete for jobs, not be given jobs for which I was not qualified.” Percy and his class are the apprentices that never happened, apprenticeship that Lincoln envision on April 11, 1865. What happened? 135. Percy asked why did he never become The Apprentice? "I waited, faithfully, expecting that the relief awarded by the United States District Court would happen, any day I would be apprenticed, but days turned into weeks turned into months and then years, while I waited.” Now, at the close of Percy's days, he seeks the relief for the class, yes, a new generation, but with the same entitlement to apprenticeship, the award is now enforced here. “Even though my skin is black, I would rather be free to compete for jobs based on my skills rather than the special treatment because of color of my skin or ethnicity.” 136. The low-income circumstances in the geographic area surrounding the facilities and projects as enumerated as the tag-along cases, places the Percy Class members at such a low level because they have been constricted to the low income neighborhood in which their families live. The economic circumstances compel children to leave school at an early age in order to help sustain themselves and the family, where fathers who are unable to provide for their families have left in order to maximize public assistance to family members, forcing uneducated children into illegal jobs such as selling drugs just to survive, who only coincidently happen to be black. These low income economic circumstances tie them to the Percy Class members and other families in the neighborhood, denying them the opportunities they 34
seek for which this action has been brought. These dire economic circumstances can persist for generations, damaging the very fabric of the Class, their families and their neighborhoods. 137. Equal opportunity at its core carries the simple mandate that opportunities should be open to all on the basis of competence alone. The complaint is that the Percy Class has not been afforded the minimum training and preparation needed to be eligible for the jobs that become available, and those who do secure work as a result of hiring goals are often unable to keep their jobs due to lack of skills. 138. The facts set forth herein are typical of the members of the Class Percy embodies, the hardscrabble Class members who are deprived of the opportunity to become fully employed as a skilled craftsperson simply desiring the dignity of work. 139. The Percy Class are the people outside of the headlines, the invisible people that only get noticed when the lights go out, when the water ceases to flow, when the trains stop, when the sewers back up or when the roads and bridges crumble. They are the workforce that ensure society does not come to a halt. And as much as society relies on them, their challenges in securing the skills necessary have gone ignored. 140. This skills deficit is most notable in communities in which chronic unemployment is most prevalent. These are also the communities most likely to embrace and benefit from the types of jobs that keep society functioning. The skills they lack are the impediment to moving them from chronic unemployment to gainful employment, and also crossing the skills deficit divide. 141. Since the discontinuance of Percy v. Brennan Case 73-cv-04279, there has been virtually no meaningful correction of skill deficits envisioned by President Lyndon Johnson upon the adoption of Presidential EO 11246, which continues to date as boilerplate in all public contracts. 142. Despite Federal Funding poured into Owners for decades, large clusters of the members of the Percy Class are unemployed, unskilled, poor and disenfranchised in communities surrounded by the very public works projects for whom the Federal Funding was intended to assist. The same 35
