World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

Arthur Sinclair, Junior is the next interview subject. He was in charge of the Department of Strategic Resources, or DeStRes, during the war. Sinclair explains that the Department was created when the safe zone behind the Rocky Mountains turns out to be plagued by zombies as well as having several other problems including starvation and homelessness. They needed to find a way to cultivate an efficient labor force and get people to work. Sinclair looked to back to the New Deal ideas espoused by his father—a close political ally of Franklin Roosevelt. The main problem was that there are a lot of white-collar workers, but the demands of the situation required blue-collar laborers.

Sinclair mined the numerous refugee camps for workers, recruiting anyone with physical capabilities for unskilled work, such as digging graves. Those with war-appropriate skills are tasked with training white-collar workers how to be self-sufficient. The program was successful, and became the National Reeducation Act, which was the biggest job-training program since World War II. There were challenges, especially rampant classism. Many of those who previously held high-powered corporate jobs were reluctant to let blue-collar workers, many of them first-generation immigrants, teach them practical skills.