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.
enabled the unskilled to take their rightful places in public or in private employment. The Fitzgerald Act is administered by the Employment and Training Administration in the Department of Labor. Regulations banning racial, ethnic, religious, age and gender discrimination in apprenticeship programs are located at Title 29, CFR Part 30, but did little to foster affirmative action for equal employment. Unfortunately, even though apprenticeship was formalized as a federally adopted structured program under the National Apprenticeship Act of 1937, it was not used as an opportunity to teach skills to disadvantaged persons. Lyndon B. Johnson President Johnson is credited with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and LBJ’s Executive Order 11246. The term affirmative action arose from Johnson’s 1965 commencement speech at predominantly black Howard University when speaking about the adoption of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, President Johnson declared that equality has to be actual equality, not equality in name, when he said: “You do not take a man who, for years has been hobbled by chains, liberate him, bring him to the starting line of a race, saying you are free to compete with all the others, and still justly believe you have been completely fair. Thus, it is not enough to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through those gates. This is the next and the more profound stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek not just freedom but opportunity--not just legal equity but human ability--not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and a result.” Equal opportunity at its core carries the simple mandate that opportunities should be open to all on the basis of competence alone. This complaint is that the Percy Class lacks the minimum training, skills and preparation needed to be eligible for the jobs that become available, and those who do secure work as a result of affirmative action mandates are v
often unable to keep their jobs and the dignity of work. Apprenticeship is the bedrock foundation upon which our country and freedom is based. Opportunity to gain basic work skills is necessary. But equal opportunity to gain skills doesn’t exist in many instances, exposing unskilled workers and the public to unmanaged risk, one example is the recent virus pandemic and its rapid spread. Apprenticeship, identified as affirmative action, is the natural right of all peoples because “The greatest wealth results from the greatest economic liberty, freedom of all individuals to work, save, buy, and earn at their pleasure, and economic life would settle into a natural order and productivity would thrive.”[ 7 ]. A natural right identified in the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution and the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution mandating equal protection of laws that affect these rights, Apprenticeship envisioned in Abraham Lincoln's forgotten last speech, from the balcony of the White House to a crowd gathered on the White House Lawn at the end of the Civil War, twice envisioning apprenticeship for freed people to gradually reconstruct the nation, yet in the 155 years since, not only has it not occurred, it has been thwarted by the Defendants. II. EXIGENT CIRCUMSTANCES Apprenticeship, foreseen by Lincoln 155 years ago as the way to restore our society, a large portion of society out of the economic mainstream, if we continue to fail to heed the Lincoln advice in the Prelude, the crisis will only get worse. Unpreparedness by the Percy Class by lack of skills and competency in all jobs and careers, will most certainly further endanger workers, especially first responders, the communities they serve and the general public. The current, disturbing, almost outrageous national emergency has propelled this action. This historic crisis is made worse by lack of knowledge, skills and personal attributes needed to perform basic jobs well. 7 The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, studied and emulated by Jefferson and the Franklin over two centuries ago vi
