There is never, ever a defense for Postal Management breaking the contract. You see, when two people or two groups of people make an agreement, it is binding. Just like a marriage or any other contract. Yet the USPS management team breaks the contract daily. In fact, they do it so much that they seem to feel like it is their “right” to do so. In most cases, this seemingly outright disrespect for the rights of the workers stems from what could be characterized as mental illness, laziness or outright disregard for the people that work under them.

It is a well known fact in the mental health field that people who are abused have a propensity to abuse others whom they assume power over. The USPS most often employs a “stuff rolls down hill” type of management. Clinically, it is falls under negative reinforcement. That’s happens when a person or group seeks to motivate someone by offering punishment if the stated goals are not met (sound familiar ). The low level supervisors dread a call or email from their superiors for that reason. If you think that’s bad, you should hear how the upper level officials speak to their “brethren”. Is that a culture for success? They seem to think so. Or it’s been that way for so long that the only thing that made them pause to rethink their philosophy was years ago when the stress built up so much that the term “going Postal” came into the vernacular of Americana. Now, we are approaching that level again!

For many USPS managers and supervisors shear laziness is a predominate character flaw that affects them. Let’s take a look at most of the supervisors that you know. So many are just kiss-ups, who got their jobs through kissing up to their supervisors at the time or through a family member or friend. So, once they get in, their latent laziness prevents them from learning the contracts or rules past their memory of said rules. So, it’s easy to just violate the contract and act like they know what they are talking about. “Show me where it says that” they often say. No, you show me where it says that! You are the one trampling on my rights. You are just too lazy to look it up when you sit in the office all day when the carriers hit the street.

The negative reinforcement and laziness comes into effect when it a supervisor would just rather deal with the ramifications of an inexperienced shop steward than have to answer to their boss (the path of least resistance). It’s so bad that they often waste postal monies by letting the union grieve a matter (when they know they are wrong) because they don’t want to seem weak to their boss. But we know that this very action shows that they are weak and without character. The net result is that a lot of money was wasted.

Another typical management type is the “ass”. A narcissistic person who gets off on just being mean an evil to others. Yes, you know them. They will typically use fear as their prime way of motivating their workers. They will usually buddy up to some as a way to divide and conquer the office. And if they can make it seem like they are “friends” with the shop steward they are where they want to be. They also will initially attack the union person in hopes that everyone else will fall in line.

There are many good honest and respectable supervisors. The problem is that they are so few and far between. And even some of them fall prey to the belief that if they wear the “tie” that they are superior as people to ones that they supervise. That is a big mistake! Under no uncertain terms would it be reasonable, righteous, or correct for postal management to break the contract. Whether it be intentional or unintentional.

But in management’s defense, they are sick, cowardly and lazy on occasion.