The Negro and Apprenticeship: A Review Article

Abstract

Apprenticeship is not a major port of entry into the labor force. In a typical year only 30,000 youths complete registered apprenticeships and enter journeyman status. And yet apprenticeship has assumed symbolic status for Negro action groups, particularly when white skilled construction crews invade the Negro ghettos. Such feelings are easy to understand. After all, Negroes are used to outdoor work, the skilled construction trades do not require a high degree of education, and they do not seem hard to learn. Thus it was especially galling to Negro pride that in the early 1960's in such progressive states as California and New York only 2 percent of apprentices were Negro, while high status trades such as electricians, plumbers, sheetmetal workers, and ironworkers were practically lily-white. Not surprisingly, the first major civil rights demonstrations in the North-in 1963-were designed to obtain employment for Negroes on construction projects. For a while apprenticeship hit the front pages. A brief flurry of government activity ensued: the federal government stepped in with regulation 29 C.F.R. 30 which required the selection of apprentices on the basis of qualifications alone; Apprenticeship Information Centers were set up in a number of cities to provide information as to how to apply for apprenticeship; state and local governments, governors, mayors, and human relations committees all got into the act. Particularly in New York, many construction union leaders made firm promises to provide equal employment. What has happened since 1963? To evaluate remedial actions taken since that time as well as the causes of discrimination, OMAT (now OMPER) commissioned Ray Marshall and Vernon Briggs to do a thorough study of the entire question. Their study was done in record time and was