#at this point I am an associate director if I’m hiring and trading my own staff members

[sassmill]

Overdraft fees are criminal fuck you

[aspiestvmusings]

The other side of the Hollywood TV/Film industry...that stays BTS from viewers:

The Unglamorous, Punishing Hours of Working on a Hollywood Set

Written by: Gavin Polone 

THIS IS A MUST-READ. FOR PEOPLE ON THE INDUSTRY. FOR TV/FILM FANS. FOR...EVERYONE. 

READ THE FULL TEXT UNDER CUT OR CLICK THE SOURCE LINK 

A week and a half ago we had an unusually long shooting day on the show I’m currently producing, Jane by Design. The crew call time was at 7 a.m. and we wrapped at 10:46 p.m. — fourteen hours and 45 minutes after subtracting our one-hour lunch break. And some had an even longer day: Our actors, including guest star Teri Hatcher, showed up for hair and makeup at 5 am, which meant that hairstylists and makeup artists, as well as someone from the transportation department and the set production assistant, also showed up to meet them and were there until wrap, giving them a total of sixteen hours and 45 minutes. Many of you who are less familiar with the culture of filmmaking may find these hours to be pretty crazy, but those of us who regularly work on sets know there was nothing out of the ordinary about this day — and it wasn't even that extreme compared to other movies and TV series, which often go beyond the standard schedule of a twelve-hour day.  

These hours can be a bit grinding for me, but as a producer I have the latitude to show up later or leave earlier. Actors can have brutal days, but they also usually get days off, as most shows are ensembles and they’re rarely in every scene. And let’s face it, producers and actors are highly compensated for their work. However, the average below-the-line worker (the budgetary classification for those who aren’t producers, directors, actors, or writers) has to be there every day and make a middle-class wage. And, from my perspective, they are also the people who whine the least about this extreme schedule. It has always been difficult for me to understand how so many in this business put up with such a punishing routine. So, as our work week wore on, I decided to interview some of the people around me about their feelings on the hours they work and how this regimen affects their lives.

Kirsten Robinson is our script supervisor, which means she helps the director keep track of continuity and makes notes for the editor on how he should put together the pieces of the scenes. Kirsten considered our show as a relief compared to a recent show she worked on where she “worked sixteen to eighteen hours every day and the worst day was twenty hours." And at the end of all that, she had to spend another hour putting together the data she collected and distributing it to others on the production. "At the lunch break, it’s like you have another regular person’s day ahead of you. What was the worst for me was the short turnarounds [the term used to mean the amount of time you have before having to be back at work].  We would work sixteen hours and then only get ten hours off and then be back for another long day. That was the real killer. Physically, you’re just exhausted. For me, it is very difficult because my job is mental. I never felt the money was worth it. I want to put my best effort forward: Fighting through and drinking as much coffee as possible doesn’t yield the best work.”

Steve D’Amato is our first assistant director, who is in charge of running the set. He recalls, "The worst day I ever worked on a show was 27 hours. It was the very last day of the very last episode of the series. We shot for 24 hours and I was there two hours before and an hour after." I asked him how this kind of schedule affects his marriage to a woman who isn’t in the business, a dermatologist: “At first, she said it might not work out, but now she uses the time when she’s alone. She’s gotten used to it. I used to be happy when a production would go over and I would make more money. But now that I’m older, it is more important to me to be able to get home and do stuff with my wife. What bothers me most is you don’t have time to do anything else. It’s hard. It seems like it’s unnecessary: You could just add one or two more days [to the schedule] and spread it out over more time. We’re the only industry that is fighting for a twelve-hour day: That is what I find amazing.”

Our transportation captain Ali Yeganhe — who dispatches drivers, manages the fleet of vehicles, including those used on-camera, and drives as well — was the most sanguine about the nature of his job, even though his department has the worst hours. When a show is on location, the drivers are the ones responsible for ferrying all the equipment back to the studio at the end of the day and making sure it's all set to go for the next one. “We’re talking about a fourteen-hour day if we’re local and as much as eighteen hours if we’re farther out. We have an eight-hour turnaround that is mandated by the department of transportation. It does take a toll on you as far as aging you. There is a high divorce rate in this business. Truthfully, I haven’t slept a whole night in three years. My wife and I were together before we got in this business. She was in wardrobe, so she knew.”

I asked him why his union, the Teamsters, was resistant to the idea of productions hiring more drivers so you could have two shifts, each working eight hours. This would save the production high overtime rates and allow a more humane schedule for the drivers, while giving more people jobs. Ali explained that “there are two ways to look at it; there are some in it for the money, and some who work four months of the year and leave once they reach their hours for their medical. A lot of guys are accustomed to making what they make. If it changed, it would bring in a whole new element of drivers who might not get the job done. Eight-hour guys don’t care about what they do. They take no pride in it.” I asked Ali if he thought the hours he worked were strange in comparison to those outside of the film and television business; he disagreed, telling me that he thought many people work long hours to support their families: “When I had a rental car company I was in the office fourteen hours a day. My cousin owns two restaurants and he works sixteen hours a day.”

Farah Bunch is the head of our makeup department and was probably the most critical of all about the system: “I’ve been doing this for eighteen years. The hours have always been the same. I started out in soap operas, which have great hours; then I went into multi-cams, which have even better hours; but once I entered the world of single-camera [meaning one-hour shows and feature films], I was in shock. I thought only in third-world countries people worked hours like this — a fourteen-hour day is the norm for the makeup department. You’re making more money, but it is blood money, 'cause you’re trading your life. It affects me in the sense that I give up all of my personal life. When I’m in season, I don’t see my friends or family. The weekends I spend recovering. I think it has contributed to me not being able to meet people because I’m not out there in the world mingling. I dated someone in the military and he was in shock that we were working all of these hours and he was out there saving lives and he’d be home by 4 p.m.: He was in Afghanistan and his hours were better than mine. You feel trapped with the hours, because you know that if you don’t do them, someone else will. And another thing, you’re given a ten-hour turnaround, which is just enough time to drive home, sleep seven hours like a normal human being, and go back to work. But production can force your call [meaning give you less than a ten-hour turnaround] for a $20 penalty. You can reject it, but you’ll be looked upon as uncooperative. My most defining moment was when I was working on In Time, the Justin Timberlake movie, and I had a 4 a.m. call in downtown L.A. underneath the freeway in the pouring rain and I thought, Is this it? … Is this going to be my life? Right now the [Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which is the organization that negotiates on behalf of the studios] are fighting with our union, local 706 IATSE, to change our double time [the point in the day where their rate changes from time and a half to double the starting rate] from twelve hours to fourteen hours, so that they can hold us longer without paying a penalty, which will only encourage them to keep shooting. It makes me feel like they’re inhumane.”

Nobody in production wants to go over twelve hours, if for no other reason than it is costly because of all the overtime. But it regularly happens when overly optimistic scheduling falls prey to bad luck, like cameras breaking, incompetence, and director egomania (though that is usually reserved for big-budget feature films). You may think, "Well, as producer, can't you just shorten the days?" but the studio sets the budget and the schedule, and you can only meet that with these long hours. I have no power to pull the plug on a day unless the studio tells me to do so, and that has happened maybe three times that I can remember in my career. Really, the only way to keep hours in check would be a firm work rule, unlike anything currently in place. In 2004, esteemed cinematographer and documentarian Haskell Wexler started an organization with the purpose of advocating for a "twelve and twelve rule": an inviolable twelve-hour maximum day with a mandated twelve-hour turnaround period for all industry workers. Wexler’s advocacy on this issue was catalyzed by the death in 1997 of cameraman Brent Hershman, who died when he fell asleep while driving home after a nineteen-hour day on the film ”Pleasantville”.

I’m as libertarian as they come and usually believe in the individual��s right to make their own decisions on what they want to do — except when those decisions may endanger others, like driving drunk. After a long day on a film set, people drive home, often long distances, and drivers who take the wheel after a seventeen- to nineteen-hour day function worse than those with blood alcohol levels of .05 percent, according to a study by the British Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine

I think the unions haven’t been fighting this issue hard enough, probably because many of their members want the extra money that comes with super-long days. If some people want to kill themselves with overwork, that’s fine, but they shouldn’t be allowed to take out another person either on the set or the road as they do it. And the AMPTP should get behind the twelve-and-twelve rule as well, since little money is saved by overworking people and not giving them sufficient downtime to recover: Productivity lessens later in the day and the costs are significantly more after twelve hours. At hour sixteen, you’re paying people double, and sometimes more, and probably getting 75 percent effectiveness. There are many complex issues involved with managing the process of filmmaking, and there are usually two reasonable sides to those arguments. But when it comes to excessive hours on film sets, I don’t really see the side that advocates for unrestricted work time. It is time to change this: Twelve hours of work and a twelve-hour turnaround should be mandated and instituted immediately on all film and television productions, period.

Source: LINK (Vulture)  

[transcriptroopers]

Extraordinary Female Soldiers

Hello recruits! It's International Women's Day, so I thought I'd introduce you all to a few outstanding soldiers in army history.  While I once explained this in a previous post, here’s a quick reminder: the military refers to its soldiers with “male” and “female” exclusively and when necessary. We’re discouraged from using either “men” or “women” to refer to each other. While in a civilian setting this would be seen as rude, especially in the case of “female,” in this case it’s actually more disrespectful to refer to female soldiers as “women.” Not only is it othering in a military setting, but to amplify a soldier’s womanhood is to separate her from her fellow soldiers, and often not in a positive way. Consider that we prefer to say “police officer” now instead of “policeman” and “policewoman.” As I’ve heard my female comrades say more than once: “I’m not a woman; I’m a soldier.”  While I’d never assume that all females who’ve enlisted feel this way, it’s been my experience overwhelmingly that female soldiers not only prefer this, but sternly enforce it. Given this, I will most frequently be using the word “female” to refer to the soldiers we’re talking about today. I hope everyone understands that by using this terminology I’m actually conferring respect rather than the opposite. I hope everyone understands that I’ll be focusing on the U.S. Army, since that’s my lane and I’d like to stick in it.

Deborah Sampson

“I am indeed willing to acknowledge what I have done, an error and presumption. I will call it an error and presumption because I swerved from the accustomed flowery path of female delicacy, to walk upon the heroic precipice of feminine perdition!”

We’ve all heard of the tale of Hua Mulan, but have you heard of America’s own Deborah Sampson? She’s widely considered to be the first enlisted female soldier in the U.S., and she served honorably in during the American Revolution as light infantry.  The oldest of seven children, Deborah grew up both in poverty and without her father until she was eventually hired out as a servant to a very conservative family. They ignited the flame of patriotism in her, and when she left the family at 18 it took only two years before she chose to join the army.  Of course, this was 1781, (or 1782; her biography lists conflicting records) and women weren’t allowed to enlist. So Deborah sewed her own waistcoat and britches and enlisted as Robert Shirtliffe (or Shurtliffe or Shurtleff; again, it’s conflicting) in a light infantry unit in Massachusetts.  For two years and through two wounds, one of which she removed the bullet herself, Deborah Sampson served in this unit honorably. In her biography, the Female Review, or the Memoirs of an American Young Lady, her biographer details the horrors of war she faced.  “She says she underwent more with fatigue and heat of the day, than by fear of being killed; although her left-hand man was shot dead at the second fire, and her ears and eyes were continually tormented with the expiring agonies and horrid scenes of many others struggling in their blood. She recollects but three on her side who were killed, John Bebby, James Battles and Noble Stern. She escaped with two shots through her coat, and one through her cap…She now says no pen can describe her feelings experienced in the commencement of an engagement, the sole object of which is to open the sluices of human blood. The unfeigned tears of humanity has more than once started into her eyes in the rehearsal of such as scene as I have just described.”

I dunno about you, but that last sentence especially gets to me.  Deborah came down with a terrible fever in 1783 and her secret was discovered while in the hospital. She was allowed to recover before being revealed, and she was spared from punishment, instead receiving an honorable discharge and being returned home with as little inconvenience as possible.  Nonetheless, it was years before Deborah would receive a pension for her service. She spent the last years of her life publicly speaking about her service, dressing in her old waistcoat to reenact her moments of glory on the battlefield.

Sources: History of Massachusetts.org, Encyclopedia Britannica, National Women’s History Museum

Harriet Tubman

Yes, THAT Harriet Tubman. “God’s time is always near. He set the North Star in the heavens; He gave me the strength in my limbs; He meant I should be free.”  Everyone knows Harriet Tubman, one of the mightiest heroines in American History, but few people know that Harriet actually served in the army during the Civil War, and at the urging of the federal government no less.  Born a slave in 1822 and escaped to freedom in 1849, Harriet spent eleven years returning to slave states and personally shepherding dozens of slaves to freedom in the north. She was not only brave but clever, devising numerous tricks and deceptions that fooled slave catchers again and again. Devoutly religious, she believed wholly in God’s deliverance, and she even earned the nickname “Moses” for her part in guiding the exodus of slaves.  During the Civil War, Harriet Tubman continued to dazzle with her many talents. A nurse, a scout, a spy, and a foot soldier, Harriet served dutifully in South Carolina for eight years. Her patients were very often primarily black and poor white soldiers, and she treated then with medicinal herbs and roots when medicine was scarce. She was efficient and kind, and some say protected by God himself, for she never caught any of the many, many diseases she treated while enlisted.

Harriet Tubman is credited with being not only the first black female soldier, but the first female soldier period to lead a military expedition. This was not a small expedition, either; hundreds of soldiers were involved in what’s now known as the Combahee River Raid. Its purpose was to harass plantation owners while rescuing their slaves, and as the boats sailed up the Combahee River, its riders shifted: the soldiers jumped onto the shore to assault the Confederates while slaves climbed aboard to safety. Faced with too many slaves to rescue and dissension growing amidst the crowd, Harriet Tubman sang to the escaping slaves to calm and encourage them, and those slaves would recall how they rejoiced and praised her and God. Approximately 750 slaves were rescued in this mission and the Confederacy was dealt a massive blow while the Union soldiers suffered no casualties.  Despite her honorable services, Harriet Tubman was denied a pension. Brigadier General Rufus Saxton’s report of the raid included the following statement: “This is the only military command in American history wherein a woman, black or white, led the raid, and under whose inspiration it was originated and conducted.” Sources: NY Times, Liberty Letters, Harriet Tubman.com

Oveta Culp Hobby

“Women who stepped up were measured as citizens of the nation, not as women…this was a people’s war and everyone was in it.”

Colonel Oveta Culp Hobby never intended to become so involved in the army. As a young woman, her trade was publishing: newspapers, editing, editorials. She and her husband ran newspapers and radio stations, and when her husband became Governor she dabbled in politics, eventually writing “Mr. Chairman,” then and now a textbook on legislature and parliamentary law. She served on committees, planned and organized, and especially advised others on how women could contribute to society.

In 1941, in the wake of the drafts, she was persuaded by the federal government to write up a plan clearly lining out how women could participate in the war, something hitherto unpublished. She did this by studying the participation of women in Britain and France and personally investigating the jobs at which women could assist the war effort without having to undragono specialized training, which at the time was often refused even to women who desired it. Though she at first denied the limelight, as she so often had in her life, she eventually became the director of the Women’s Army Auxilary Corps. A corps entirely of females, she and her unit were shunned by sexist military officials who  refused to allow mingling between the WAAC and the regular army and even refused to issue pay. Because the women were not technically enlisted, (although Oveta later took the Oath of Office herself in 1943 to become a colonel) they reasoned that they shouldn’t have to treat the women the same because the women of the WAAC were still civilians. They partly reasoned this because so few jobs in the army were actually open to female soldiers, a point which Oveta Culp Hobby sought to remedy. By the time she was done, over 200 jobs in the U.S. army became accessible to female soldiers, over four times the “generous” proposal outlined by Congress. Her plans, policies, and training methods would later be nationally acknowledged and implemented. Even after leaving service, she continued to argue for fully equality in the army, not limited to only females but race as well. In 1945, she became the first woman to be awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, and a very distinguished legacy she leaves behind indeed.  Source: Texas State Historical Association, Rice Fondren Library

Lori Ann Piestewa

Our final extraordinary female soldier is Lori Ann Piestewa, a Hopi native from 11th ADA Brigade (my old brigade, as it happens) who enlisted in the U.S. Army in 2001 after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

"I’m not trying to be a hero. I just want to get through this crap and go home." Lori, born in 1979, was the youngest of four. She played softball and was active in her high school’s ROTC program, showing in both a strong aptitude for challenging herself. She came from a family of soldiers who raised her to have confidence in herself and her abilities, and it came as no surprise to her family when she enlisted in the army, eventually settling with the 507th Maintenance Company. Numerous accounts of her peers recount Lori as being a dependable and enthusiastic comrade for the two years she was enlisted. Lori’s MOS was 92A, Automated Logistical Specialist, a non-combat MOS. She kept records on equipment and accounted for much of her unit’s inventory. In 2003, Lori Ann Piestewa was deployed to Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. A mere PFC at the time and a mere three days into the U.S. invasion of Iraq, she and her company’s convoy were traveling through the harsh desert. They intended to pass by Nasiriyah, an enormous Iraqi city under enemy control during the early stages of the Iraq war. Unfortunately, a navigational error brought them to Nasiriyah’s front doorstep, and a firefight ensued, one of the first of the Iraq war.  All but three of their vehicles were destroyed and eleven soldiers were killed in combat, with six being captured. Lori was taken prisoner along with other famous POWs Jessica Lynch and Shoshana Johnson, but unfortunately, Lori had been wounded in the head during the attack, and there was no suitable medical equipment or personnel available to treat her.  Lori Ann Piestewa was posthumously promoted to specialist following her death, and she also received the Purple Heart and the Prisoner of War Medal. Jessica Lynch has maintained ever since the ambush that Lori performed admirably during the attack that took almost a third of the soldiers present and that she was a heroine for her efforts, and her death has resonated with people of all races across the country. The Hopi and Navajo people prayed for her despite their long-time feud, and the Arizona Sports council has immortalized her in their annual Lori Piestewa National American Games. After her death, efforts across the country began to rename the various national landmarks named with the offensive “squaw” term, one of which includes Piestewa Peak, a location where many now come to hike, bike, and pay their respects to Lori.

Lori was not only the first Native American female killed in combat, but the first female to be killed in the Iraq War, and this fact, along with her dedication, has cemented her place in history as an extraordinary female soldier. 

Sources: Rolling Stone, Indian Country Media Network, Piestewa Native Web.org

I hope you enjoyed this post accounting the stupendous bravery of American women in the military! There’s so many more amazing women in history and I couldn’t possibly account all of the lives and achievements of female soldiers, but I hope that on this International Women’s Day you’ll join me in saluting the memory of these four pioneers of freedom. 

-Kingsley

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[newstfionline]

Retooling the workforce

Sara Miller Llana, CS Monitor, June 18, 2017

BILBAO, SPAIN--Koldo Mentxaka was always considered the “brains” in the family. So it was no surprise when he, the oldest of four brothers, completed a university degree--the only one in his family to do so--and then went on to get his master’s in computer engineering. After working at IBM and later as a computer consultant in his hometown of Bilbao, on Spain’s northern coast, he lost his job in 2013 in the wake of the global financial crisis.

“Not you,” he remembers his mother saying to him at the time. “Of the four of you, not you.”

He tried to keep his cool. After all, he’d already had a successful career spanning almost two decades. Yet months of joblessness passed, one after the other. “I was sending out résumés everywhere, doing online courses, but at the end you lose hope. You think, ‘am I so bad that no one wants to hire me?’”

After 2-1/2 years of unemployment--and at age 40--he made a decision. He would forget his elite university degree, his long business lunches. He was going to trade school. “This was my way out, the way to recycle myself,” he says on a recent morning, a few months away from finishing a two-year course that’s positioned him for a job programming machinery at an industrial software company.

Mr. Mentxaka is undergoing the kind of retraining and career reinvention that societies will increasingly face as the world confronts some of the biggest workforce changes in more than a century. Technological change, the decline of manufacturing, the restructuring of “white collar” industries, globalization--all are dramatically changing the nature of work and the types of jobs that will be available in the future.

“Clearly the period of rapid industrialization in the 1800s, the creation of the factory economy, was a big change, but that occurred over a pretty long period,” says Mark Muro, an expert in advanced and inclusive economic development at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “I actually think this is one of the most disruptive moments we’ve seen, because there are more types of occupations facing more challenges.”

Most attention has been paid to blue-collar workers whose industries have been wiped out by dislocation and technological progress. Yet they are not the only laborers suffering. In Europe, the debt crisis has eased, but low-growth economies mean a dearth of job openings--particularly high-quality jobs--has persisted for all types of workers, including midlevel career people such as Mentxaka. And youth unemployment rates of more than 30 percent in some European countries have given rise to a generation of underpaid college graduates surviving on temporary contracts.

Even among those who have jobs, change is the new reality, adding to the importance of retraining. In the United States, for instance, the average person now can expect to change jobs 10 to 15 times over a working lifetime, often with changes of career in the mix. Years ago people pursued a single career path for the majority of their lives.

In Europe, where labor laws make it tougher to hire and fire people and professional reinvention is not as prevalent, the churn is less pronounced but no less significant. One survey in 2015 found that nearly half of all workers in the United Kingdom intended to switch jobs within three years. The average in Europe overall was 34 percent.

To help ease these transitions, Europe is offering some of the most innovative solutions. While its rigid laws and zealous unions make labor reforms difficult, Europe nonetheless far outspends the US on labor market programs, puts more emphasis on apprenticeships and vocational training, and generally places higher value on helping displaced workers.

The US, to be sure, has an economy that is outperforming Europe’s. But many experts say that Americans still have a lot to learn from Europe as workers struggle to find their way in the new economy, not to mention that retraining programs can change the tenor of politics: Some say they could act as a buffer against the more radical elements of populism sweeping the world, fueled in part by angry, unemployed workers.

“We know full well that the proper handling of the [economic] ruptures has to do with proper social safety nets: with education, with training, with the capacity of the labor market to relocate people,” says Pascal Lamy, former director general of the World Trade Organization and now president emeritus of the Paris-based think tank Notre Europe/Jacques Delors Institute.

Globalization has been disrupting jobs for decades. That’s why the US Labor Department enacted the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program in 1962--to help workers displaced by jobs moving offshore and bolster support for trade liberalization. Europeans were thinking about it even earlier, in 1951, when they formed the bloc that would later turn into the European Union.

Such programs have gotten a new look as automation has added to uncertainties about the future of work, especially after the recent financial crisis. And the pace of change is only likely to pick up. A McKinsey & Co. report in 2015 showed that 60 percent of all occupations could see 30 percent or more of their activities automated in the future. That’s not just low-skilled work but jobs in fields such as mortgage lending and health care.

Brahim Ben Addi could easily have succumbed to the changes sweeping through industrialized economies--especially globalization. He started work right out of high school at the French car manufacturer PSA Group, mounting airbags and brakes at a plant outside Paris. He thought he’d work there until he retired, just as his father had. But PSA closed the factory in 2013, in the face of increased competition from overseas automakers.

“It’s like going 180 kilometers per hour, then braking to 10,” says Mr. Ben Addi, a father of three, who worked at the plant for 13 years.

Entrepreneurial by nature, Ben Addi had already been learning breadmaking on his own time. His generous wage insurance and payout from the company--more than €65,000 ($73,000)--allowed him to trade working on an assembly line for kneading dough. He opened up his own bakery, La Gourman dise, in his neighborhood in a Parisian suburb.

In three years, he has become something of a local phenomenon. His flour-dusted “tradition” baguette was named the best in his community, no small accolade in France. Now he wants to open up a bakery in Paris and win best baguette of the city, an honor that would allow him to serve the Élysée Palace for a year.

“It’s hard,” says Ben Addi of being an entrepreneur, as he stands behind the counter of his bakery in a crisp white smock, catering to a lunchtime crowd. “If you lose your job, you have unemployment [insurance]. Here if I lose my job, I lose a lot of money. You have to have courage.”

Ben Addi received some of the money to start his new venture from the European Globalization Adjustment Fund (EGF), which, like the TAA, is intended to help retrain laid-off workers. The EGF recently expanded its assistance to include workers who lost jobs during the global financial crisis and youths in regions disproportionately affected by foreign competition who are neither working nor studying.

Yet fired European workers get far more help than just EGF grants. According to figures from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), France and Germany spend much more on labor market adjustment programs than the US does--including on wage insurance, support for starting new companies, and access to training. France and Germany spend 0.99 percent and 0.66 percent of their gross domestic product respectively on such programs, compared with 0.11 percent for the US.

It’s clear that “social protection in Europe is much more developed than in the US,” says Baudouin Baudru, whose portfolio at the European Commission includes the EGF. “It is in the DNA, the history of the development of Europe.”

Some would argue, of course, that too much government help and financial protection are bad for economies: Generous unemployment benefits can discourage people from finding work.

The US, for its part, fosters more of a bootstrap spirit than most countries in Europe. This can be good for workers and creation generally, says Mr. Muro, but not necessarily for those in need. It can aggravate a mismatch between skills and what’s needed for the jobs of the future. “I think that divide is one of the great flaws of the US system,” says Muro.

Many point to Nordic countries as examples of smart collaboration between government, industry, and workers. They have a long history of consensus in labor relations, with unions and employers working together to head off debilitating protests. But the arrangement also serves to prepare workers for the realities of modern economies.

Sweden, for instance, relies on “job security councils”--nonprofits funded by employers that work with employees, employers, and unions to identify where new jobs are and to retrain workers for them. Workers, as a result, are less prone to fight to hang onto jobs that may become obsolete. Eighty-five percent of fired workers in Sweden find new jobs within a year, the highest rate of OECD member countries.

“It makes it possible to push structural change in society,” says Jesper Roine, an associate professor at the Stockholm School of Economics who sat on a Swedish “Future of Work” commission. “You get individual people who are not afraid of change simply because they know, ‘if something happens to me, I’m not totally on my own; there will be some kind of retraining.’”

France and other European countries are currently wrestling with how much government involvement there should be in helping workers cope with the new economy. François Béharel, president of Randstad France, the French branch of the global employment agency, says he’d like to see officials doing more to help college graduates and companies that can’t find workers with the skills they need.

In France, the youth unemployment rate is nearly 22 percent; in Spain it’s close to 40 percent, in Greece more than 45 percent. Mr. Béharel says these numbers could go down if governments took a more active role in spelling out which jobs and salaries are connected to specific degrees. “As it is now, the students have no idea, so when they finish [school], they find themselves unemployed,” he says.

At the same time, 50 percent of employers in France report they have trouble finding workers with the right talents, compared with 40 percent in the EU on average, according to European Commission figures. “Every day we are lacking welders, sheet metal workers, plumbers,” Béharel says. “We should be promoting the blue-collar work that corresponds to the needs of the marketplace.”

To do that requires, first, changing perceptions at home. “Parents need to understand that even if they want their children to become white-collar workers, there are many, many more jobs for blue-collar workers,” he says. It’s an idea best exemplified in Germany--in the form of an apprenticeship program that makes blue-collar work seem “noble.”

The country’s widely lauded vocational-training program has helped keep youth unemployment down to about 6.5 percent, far below the average rates in other European nations and in the US. Its two-pronged approach gives students a chance to learn theories in the classroom while honing their skills as drywallers, insulation installers, carpenters, and boat builders on the job through apprenticeships. According to German government statistics, about two-thirds of trainees get jobs with the companies they’ve apprenticed with. “In some fields [young people] with a vocation qualification are even more sought after than university graduates,” a government website proudly declares.

That’s something that Ander Cabrera knows all too well. He is in his first year of robotics at the Salesianos Deusto professional training school in Bilbao--the same school that Mentxaka attends. Mr. Cabrera already has a degree in electrical engineering from the University of the Basque Country. But when he graduated last spring, he realized the chances of finding a good full-time job with benefits were slim. He watched as friends accepted temporary jobs that eventually left them unemployed. While he considered getting a master’s degree, in the end he decided that trade school was the smartest choice, particularly given that Spain, since 2012, has modeled its programs after the German approach. “I hope vocational school gives me an edge,” he says.

Classmate Sarai Noriega has her own reasons for wanting to get vocational training. Like many others here, she got a university degree, in this case in construction engineering. She even found a job. But she didn’t like the long hours she had to work, which weren’t viable for her as a single mother of two. She watched her blue-collar counterparts clocking in and out for the same salary that she made and decided to change careers. The price of the full-time program she is taking in automation and robotics is relatively cheap, about €80 ($90) a month, which was also an attraction.

“This was the fastest way to get a new job,” she says, struggling to wire a circuit board. “Many single mothers are in this situation. This could be a solution for them.”

A return to blue-collar work is not just a matter of pragmatism. When the American writer Matthew B. Crawford, who has a PhD in political philosophy, penned a book about why he decided to work as a motorcycle mechanic in Richmond, Va., he became a cause célèbre. Published in 2009, “Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work” attested to the contentment that can be derived from working with one’s hands instead of doing “knowledge” work.

“The satisfactions of manifesting oneself concretely in the world through manual competence have been known to make a man quiet and easy,” he writes. “They seem to relieve him of the felt need to offer chattering interpretations of himself to vindicate his worth. He can simply point: the building stands, the car now runs, the lights are on.”

Mentxaka can relate to the gratification. He liked working as a computer consultant. He would have happily continued to do it, but he couldn’t find a way to sustain a career in the industry. Today he says he derives unexpected pleasure from his new vocation. At school they’ve learned how to make electronic switchboards and combine them with programming languages, sensors, motors, and robotic arms--skills he is using at the software company where he’s apprenticing. “It is like a game but for grown-ups,” he says.

While in the depths of joblessness, he says, he started to understand how people can complain about immigrants getting jobs when citizens can’t find work. Then he said he had a revelation: “You wake up--you realize you [can either] stay behind or you can go ahead.”