Unfil­te­red working realities. The appren­ti­ce­ship of a skilled canner

A critical look at archival vocational guidance films can sharpen one's view of major changes in the world of work and occupations. Making, taking a closer look at a Swiss television report on the apprenticeship of canners from the 1960s, worth it.

On the basis of four snippets, we would like to point out decisive cha­rac­te­ris­tics of voca­tio­nal guidance films in the 1960s. It is of central impor­t­ance that the example in question deals with an indus­tri­al occup­a­ti­on, so it is set in an indus­tri­al envi­ron­ment and testifies to the Fordist-Taylorist concept of pro­duc­tion at that time. The assembly line appears as the dominant moment that deter­mi­nes the work process, where appren­ti­ces appear as cogs in the machine that should be “assembled” as effi­ci­ent­ly as possible (*).

Appren­ti­ces and factory staff look atten­tively at the running assembly line (shots 4–17, 0:50).  The appren­ti­ces’ forebo­din­gly stern facial expres­si­ons seem to express the serious­ness of the situation. The appren­ti­ces are shown in close-up and half-total, the shots of the assembly line are also mainly close-up detailed shots. The appren­ti­ces are shown en masse, there is still no noti­ce­ab­le tendency towards indi­vi­dua­li­sa­ti­on, as the assembly line, the change of shot size and duration create the impres­si­on a dynamism.

On the one hand we see a static training situation with a close-up of the trainer, which empha­si­ses the serious­ness of what is being said, and on the other hand we see close-ups of the conveyor belt and short tracking shots during the lecture in order to loosen up the per­for­mance. The master (shot 18, 1:20) embodies authority and impor­t­ance and provides rather com­pre­hen­si­ve infor­ma­ti­on (use­ful­ness of multiple skills, areas of employ­ment in the company, possible careers, etc.). Work virtues or skills are not ela­bo­ra­ted on, but are sum­ma­ri­sed with the expres­si­on “be capable”. In part, this may be due to a lack of work analyses and a lack of an inventory of terms. However, there is a noti­ce­ab­le “nar­row­ness” in the pre­sen­ta­ti­on of career paths. The subtext here could be, “You’re going to be indus­tri­al workers and you’re going to stay that way, get over it, you’ll make a living and it’s good for the company.”

Cut to the jam kitchen, the atmo­s­phe­re of a com­mer­cial kitchen (shots 22–28, 1:59), the cooking vat for mixing jam in semi-close-up shot, then zoom in on the surface of the jam mix. The comment of the foreman: “It’s just like mother’s” — seems appeasing and almost touching due to the obvious dis­crepan­cy to the visual representation.

In the depiction of the indus­tri­al pro­duc­tion, there is a clear dif­fe­rence to today‘s images of the world of work. The jam sticks to the pro­duc­tion line (min 2:20), the sauer­kraut hangs in shreds on machine parts (min 1:07). Such aes­the­ti­ci­sa­ti­on of labour or aesthetic capi­ta­lism as the­ma­tised by Andreas Reckwitz and Gernot Böhme is reserved for post-Fordism.

In short: The film seems dynamic and almost immersive because of the rhythm set by the machinery and the assembly line. The effec­tively staged pro­duc­tion becomes the “ticking clock” and in actuality the “main actor”. The con­s­tric­tion and over-depen­den­cy of the labour force that this conveys may be jarring from today’s per­spec­ti­ve, but it is an unavo­ida­ble feature of the pro­duc­tion regime of that time. The most striking dif­fe­rence to today concerns the objective repre­sen­ta­ti­on of reality: no embel­lish­ment is aimed for, only the visua­li­sa­ti­on of func­tio­n­a­li­ty dominates. Likewise, indi­vi­dua­li­sa­ti­on is obviously not yet a cha­rac­te­ris­tic of voca­tio­nal guidance films. In terms of film com­po­si­ti­on, however, there are hardly any dif­fe­ren­ces to con­tem­pora­ry filmma­king of this type.

Canners became “canners and freezers” in 1970, “canner and freezer tech­no­lo­gists” in 1983, and these finally became our “food tech­no­lo­gists” of today. The trans­for­ma­ti­on and aes­the­ti­ci­sa­ti­on of the training occup­a­ti­on are thus also reflected in the evolution of job titles. Obviously, we have kept up tending to polish up the ter­mi­no­lo­gy and repre­sen­ta­ti­on of the world of work for quite some time, while “keeping up with Kardashians”.

Dr. Reinhold Gaubitsch is a political scientist and was, until his reti­re­ment, project manager in the Depart­ment of Labor Market and Career Infor­ma­ti­on of the Public Employ­ment Service Austria and respon­si­ble, among other things, for voca­tio­nal guidance films.

(*) In her his­to­ri­cal discourse analysis, Lena Frei­dor­fer uses 600 newspaper articles to describe the changes in the image of appren­ti­ces in the cantons of German-speaking Switz­er­land between 1950 and 1970: from the con­for­mist “pro­duc­tion factor” (1950–1959) to the appren­ti­ce in need of pro­tec­tion (1960 — 1967) to the pro­tes­ting appren­ti­ce (from 1968). What can be seen in the film is certainly a mixture of the first two with an emphasis on the ‘pro­duc­tion factor’.

Refe­ren­ces:
Böhme, Gernot (2016). Ästhe­ti­scher Kapi­ta­lis­mus, Berlin: Suhrkamp.
Frei­dor­fer-Kabashi, L. (2020): Vom „Lehrling“ zum „Lernenden “ – Zur Wahr­neh­mung Jugend­li­cher in Aus­bil­dung im Zuge der Trans­for­ma­ti­on der beruf­li­chen Bildung [From “appren­ti­ce” to “learner” — The per­cep­ti­on of young people in training during the trans­for­ma­ti­on of voca­tio­nal education and training]. In: bwp@ Berufs- und Wirt­schafts­päd­ago­gik – online, Ausgabe 38, 1–34. Online: https://www.bwpat.de/ausgabe38/freidorfer-kabashi_bwpat38.pdf (24.06.2020).
Reckwitz, Andreas (2008). Elemente einer Sozio­lo­gie des Ästhe­ti­schen, In: Reckwitz, Andreas, Unscharfe Grenzen: Per­spek­ti­ven der Kul­tur­so­zio­lo­gie, tran­script Verlag.