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Chicano conference programs and speeches, April 1973-May 1974

1974-04-14 Workshop IV, Chicano: Legal Process Page 5

5

   I'll just mention briefly here that in the educational requirements and the testing requirements they have to be employment related to a certain extent. They can't give you a test in American History if you are going to be doing accounting or something like that. It has to deal with some relationship with your employment. On this basis some of the testing requirements have been set aside that have been thought to have been discriminatory because of the fact that they are not employment related and they were just being used as a device to keep out the Chicano from getting the job. t this point I would like to ask Professor Bartel if he would like to make a comment in this particular area of what kind of problems you run into in employment and what the supreme court has been doing in this area.

Professor Bartels: It is not an area that I know that much about. I have had some experience in Detroit. Very often in this area you are fighting not the state or the federal government but you are fighting the labor unions, which will have an apprenticeship test. The case I was familiar with in Detroit involved an electrical workers union. They had a very complicated test. It just so happened very few Blacks passed this test even though about 40 percent of their applicants were Black.

   I think this is an area where you do have these kinds of rights but again it is going to be very difficult to enforce them because the kind of litigation you need to use is very complicated. The courts have overturned these kinds of tests. But at least my experience in Detroit was they demanded a great deal of you in coming in and analyzing that test very carefully and proving that it did not have anything to do with the employment that was going to be granted. There are other kinds of questions, math, algebra questions that may not really have much to do with a person's ability to be an electrical worker, but it is hard for you to prove that they do not have anything to do with being an electrical worker. In those kinds of situations the union has something of an advantage because the court is likely to look at them as some kind of expert on what is needed to do the job. So, you may have to come up with your own experts against them and experts are very expensive unless you happen to know someone who is good enough to devote several days of his or her time on that type of case.

   I would like to just tie this in with what the gentleman from Chicago was talking about earlier. I would agree that lawyers are not always necessary. I think one of the problems that poor people in general have had is over-reliance on lawyers. On the other hand I don't think that poor people can simply take on a case themselves and go down and file a case and try to run it through themselves; they need to have some kind of training.

   I would like to just tie this in with what the gentleman from Chicago was talking about earlier. I would agree that lawyers are not always necessary. I think one of the problems that poor people in general have had is over-reliance on lawyers. On the other hand I don't think that poor people can take on a case themselves and go down and file a case and try to run it through themselves; they need to have some kind of training.

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5 I'll just mention briefly here that in the educational requirements and the testing requirements they have to be employment related to a certain extent. They can't give you a test in American History if you are going to be doing accounting or something like that. It has to deal with some relationship with your employment. On this basis some of the testing requirements have been set aside that have been thought to have been discriminatory because of the fact that they are not employment related and they were just being used as a device to keep out the Chicano from getting the job. t this point I would like to ask Professor Bartel if he would like to make a comment in this particular area of what kind of problems you run into in employment and what the supreme court has been doing in this area. Professor Bartels: It is not an area that I know that much about. I have had some experience in Detroit. Very often in this area you are fighting not the state or the federal government but you are fighting the labor unions, which will have an apprenticeship test. The case I was familiar with in Detroit involved an electrical workers union. They had a very complicated test. It just so happened very few Blacks passed this test even though about 40 percent of their applicants were Black. I think this is an area where you do have these kinds of rights but again it is going to be very difficult to enforce them because the kind of litigation you need to use is very complicated. The courts have overturned these kinds of tests. But at least my experience in Detroit was they demanded a great deal of you in coming in and analyzing that test very carefully and proving that it did not have anything to do with the employment that was going to be granted. There are other kinds of questions, math, algebra questions that may not really have much to do with a person's ability to be an electrical worker, but it is hard for you to prove that they do not have anything to do with being an electrical worker. In those kinds of situations the union has something of an advantage because the court is likely to look at them as some kind of expert on what is needed to do the job. So, you may have to come up with your own experts against them and experts are very expensive unless you happen to know someone who is good enough to devote several days of his or her time on that type of case. I would like to just tie this in with what the gentleman from Chicago was talking about earlier. I would agree that lawyers are not always necessary. I think one of the problems that poor people in general have had is over-reliance on lawyers. On the other hand I don't think that poor people can simply take on a case themselves and go down and file a case and try to run it through themselves; they need to have some kind of training. I would like to just tie this in with what the gentleman from Chicago was talking about earlier. I would agree that lawyers are not always necessary. I think one of the problems that poor people in general have had is over-reliance on lawyers. On the other hand I don't think that poor people can take on a case themselves and go down and file a case and try to run it through themselves; they need to have some kind of training.