Apprenticeship, 1957-1980

This series is comprised primarily of apprenticeship proposals, agreements, contracts, activity and compliance reports, and outreach efforts arranged by state for states, areas, and cities. It also contains correspondence, press releases, and news clippings and pamphlets on a variety of apprenticeship initiatives. Such initiatives were spearheaded by combinations of organized labor, businesses, civil rights, community organizations, and government agencies (particularly, the Manpower Administration and the Employment Standards Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor) and were designed to train or upgrade and employ minorities and women in various skilled industries, primarily the building trades (helping to open unions and unionized jobs to minority and women workers). Additionally, the series contains copies of charges of discrimination against local unions and local building and construction trades councils filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The Civil Rights Department was consulted on a variety of issues surrounding apprenticeship, including requests for recommendation, support, or intervention; director Donald Slaiman also served on the advisory committee of the Joint Apprenticeship Program; the department was provided with and in turn asked to provide information and reports on a variety of apprenticeship initiatives.

The AFL-CIO objected to the "Philadelphia Plan" (circa early 1969, under the Nixon administration), one of the first government affirmative action plans affecting contractors working for the federal government. The plan, according to George Meany, focused on individual contractors rather than on area-wide agreements, making it "quite possible for a contractor to fully comply with its commitments without bringing a single new employee into the area-wide job pool." The plan also "diverts attention from the real solid task of training and qualifying minority workers for a permanent place in the ranks of skilled workers who are available and qualified for employment on all the construction work in an area, not just the federally-financed work." The AFL-CIO focused on apprenticeship outreach - working through the Civil Rights Department's Joint Apprenticeship Committee of the Workers Defense League and the A. Philip Randolph Education Fund - to recruit and train minority youth for entry into apprenticeships in the construction industry. (Labor and the Philadelphia Plan by George Meany, based on an address to the National Press Club, Washington, D.C., 1970-01-12.)

The series contains printed, near print, and manuscript material (correspondence, news clippings, reports, press releases, regulations, proposals, minutes, agendas, and legislation).