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.
Conkling[ 3 ] enter the story. In 1865 Vice President Andrew Johnson became President and reconstruction of the south began. Conkling had previously been Lincoln's collaborator and supporter in Congress for freeing the enslaved people, and later a staunch supporter of President Grant’s efforts. Conkling began work in earnest on the 13 th , 14 th and 15 th amendments to the Constitution of the United States as a member of the Congressional drafting committee. Conkling’s focus was on the 14 th Amendment. Conkling understood the phrase "apprenticeship for freed-people” as a fundamental natural right to work, earn, live, and pursue happiness, full equal opportunity that should be afforded to all, including those as freed-people, natural rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. When Lincoln was assassinated, Conkling rose to the need to determine and assure that the Constitution protected these rights, which lead to the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Conkling was instrumental to not only implementing emancipation which was granted by the 13th Amendment, but also equal protection of the laws afforded to all persons by the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment, drafted by committee, was ratified in 1866. Conkling was a principal contributor on the Committee drafting the 14th Amendment and its equal protection and due process clauses. Conkling tried to pursue the Lincoln vision, but the 10 years after Lincoln’s assassination, the 10 years following Lincoln’s vision of apprenticeship for freed people, were 10 years of anarchy and lawlessness which brought President Ulysses S. Grant and his close friend Conkling to utter frustration. Reconstruction was failing. It was then that Senator Francis Kernan, on an Electoral Commission to settle the Presidential Election of 1876, cast a deciding vote to accomplishing the compromise of 1877 to preserve the Union, end Reconstruction, and bring the southern states behind a compromise presidential candidate - Rutherford B. Hayes[ 4 ]. Apprenticeship for freed people was lost, the apprenticeship plank of Reconstruction was abandoned [ 3 ] Bibliography Manuscript research reference [ 4 ] Bibliography manuscript research reference iii
in the compromise of 1877 which ended Reconstruction[ 5 ]. Conkling had declined a seat on the committee knowing what the outcome was sure to be – there would be an abandonment all efforts to provide equality. Conkling later became lost as a dark figure of graft and corruption at the New York City Customs House, finally dying in the blizzard of 1888 walking from his office at Wall Street to Union Square. A sorry end, Conkling had abandoned his moral compass[ 6 ]. Apprenticeship did not again resurface for the benefit of freed persons until the Percy Class sued in 1973 to eliminate discrimination in economic opportunity, eliminate segregation and eliminate disparate opportunity. The Percy v. Brennan lawsuit followed as a result of the civil rights movements of the 1960s. Percy as a Class now complains that if the Class had gotten what was long ago a vision called apprenticeship, a vision not fulfilled even 154 years later, the world would be a much different place today. Franklin Roosevelt Apprenticeship was not formalized as a federally adopted structured program until the National Apprenticeship Act of 1937, and even then was not used as an opportunity to teach skills to disadvantaged persons. In 1937, the Congress passed the National Apprenticeship Act (29 U.S.C. 50), also known as "the Fitzgerald Act." The Act established a national advisory committee whose task was to research and draft regulations to establish minimum standards for apprenticeship programs. The Act was later amended to permit the United States Department of Labor to issue regulations protecting the health, safety and general welfare of apprentices, and to encourage the use of contracts in the hiring and employment of them. Much like FDR’s Work Projects Administration (WPA), which put the unskilled to work building America’s airports, schools, and highways, apprenticeship programs can once again train the unskilled to build today’s infrastructure. The WPA maintained and increased working skills; and it [ 5 ] Bibliography Manuscript research reference [ 6 ] Bibliography Manuscript research reference iv
