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One sad thing I have noticed in American workplace is high levels of stress and higher levels of cruelty. This story is one such example. Another one is that Te

• hotpotamus 3y ago
  It's called a capitalist economy; not a laborist one. What I've never understood is how this is a surprise to anyone or why labor chooses to vote against their interests. That said, the heat this year in Texas was brutal (speaking from personal experience) and I don't know how people who work outside do it and how they'll continue to do it as global warming progresses.
  • junofan 3y ago
    I thought the USPS was a government agency with unionized employees. What’s the explanation for this abhorrent behavior?
    • funnyflywheel 3y ago
      Louis DeJoy is still in charge.
    • marcinzm 3y ago
      Unions simply existing don't magically make thing amazing for every employee and the US government doesn't actually care about people any more than corporations do.
    • erellsworth 3y ago
      If you read the article, it's pretty clear that this abhorrent behavior is coming from management, with the union pushing back. I'd guess it will be an issue during the next contract negotiations.
      • actuallyalys 3y ago
        Agreed. Management’s actions, which are shameful regardless, seem further exacerbated by their ability to track carriers’ position to the minute and possibly having too few employees [0]. The latter may be the after effects of a requirement, since repealed, that required USPS to pre-fund pensions. (That’s not in the article) To re-emphasize, these factors don’t excuse management’s actions. [0]: https://apwu.org/press-release/angry-about-late-erratic-missing-mail-and-long-delays-postal-counter-postal-workers https://apwu.org/press-release/angry-about-late-erratic-miss...
    • spacecadet 3y ago
      Its an "independent agency", which as we've seen, acts more or less like a capitalist corporation.
    • mrguyorama 3y ago
      Unions for government employees are usually weird and impotent, because the government has either gutted the right to strike, or is straight up willing to just fire everyone. Or much much worse, just completely ignore all bargaining that the Union attempts. This puts the Union in an odd position in that, people don't usually want to strike, but negotiation doesn't happen.
      • hyperman1 3y ago
        How did the USA end up in this position? Here, whenever the gov tries to limit the right to strike, the unions respond with an all sector whole country mother of all strikes.
  • ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
    I have a friend that lives in Delhi. He told me that laborers are dropping dead on the job. It's not uncommon at all.
    • akudha 3y ago
      It's not uncommon at all Yeah, that is the problem. It shouldn't be common
  • FFP999 3y ago
    [dead]
• h2odragon 3y ago
  USPS workers have at least 3 unions: City carrier, rural carrier, and clerks.
• OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  In the case of USPS, there is a section of the American population who wouldn’t necessarily support better conditions. A relative of mine was a letter carrier. That whole branch of family, who you would think would, qua family, be sympathetic, regularly scoffed at the relatively decent working conditions he had at USPS. Comments like “You can’t tell me that he should be getting over $20/hour just to deliver the mail”. Some of that was possibly jealousy. But another factor is that unions for public-sector employees have always been more controversial in the United States than unionization in general.
  • local_crmdgeon 3y ago
    USPS has 3 unions. This is just a speculative rant, please don't do that here.
    • OfSanguineFire 3y ago
      Where did I say USPS doesn’t have unions? The whole point of my post is that this is a unionized sector, and that unionization got results.
  • gottorf 3y ago
    > unions for public-sector employees have always been more controversial in the United States than unionization in general. For good reason. Unions pool workers' interests against the opposing interests of the employer; which means for public unions, they go against the interests of the public at large. There are countless examples of this. Naturally, in a country with a deep history of skepticism of centralized government authority, people don't view public-sector unions very favorably.
    • entropicdrifter 3y ago
      >Naturally, in a country with a deep history of skepticism of centralized government authority, people don't view public-sector unions very favorably. This feels contradictory to the sentiment in the preceding statement at first glance. If the people are generally skeptical of centralized government authority, why would they also be skeptical of unions who push back against that centralized authority, as opposed to seeing themselves as on the same side?
• twh270 3y ago
  The importance of "The Economy" doing well is baked deep into the American psyche: if the economy is healthy, the country is healthy. And "doing well" is understood to mean businesses are healthy (revenue/market/profit growth). That means working as much as possible, for as few benefits as possible, is the accepted standard. Because who wants the economy (and by implication, the country) to do poorly? And if some, or a lot, of people suffer from stress and mental breakdowns, physical injuries, or death, well, that's a price our business and political "leadership" is willing to pay. (Some sarcasm there, in case it isn't obvious.) Recently there does appear to be more noise around employee/worker benefits (including wages), hence things like the striking screen actors and auto workers (and attempted strike from railroad workers, who have shockingly terrible benefits), and renewed interest in unions. The health of a country ought not be measured solely by its GDP and financial markets.
  • ndiddy 3y ago
    I think a lot of this is because of the shift from pension plans to 401Ks and IRAs. When an economic downturn means that you have years of retirement savings wiped out, of course you'll want the economy to do well.
    • lotsofpulp 3y ago
      Pension plans and 401K/IRA are invested in the same thing. The only difference is a pension plan board/fund manager is an additional middleman that can be stupid/corrupted, hence more agency risk for the benefit recipient. Taxpayer funded pension plans offset that agency risk with the power of being able to increase taxes, assuming their tax base is sufficient.
      • KMag 3y ago
        Historically, many pensions were defined benefit, rather than defined contribution. Market risk (and benefit) fell upon the employer rather than the employee. My understanding is that defined benefit pensions are pretty rare these days.
• layer8 3y ago
  > It all looks well coordinated, deliberately planned and calculated. It may look that way, but it is much more likely an emergent cultural phenomenon.
• jdjdjdhhd 3y ago
  You said weird... But it's completely fucked up... At that point government needs a makeover
• datavirtue 3y ago
  UAW is getting good media coverage but if you watch Shawn Fain's live streams (available on YouTube) he mentions numerous unions currently striking all over the US. A lot of them with tens of thousands of workers. I think it boils down to leaders being self-centered. Being the boss isolates you. Isolation leads to self-centerdness. Being self-centered is isolating. It's a vicious circle. It's cruel to embue one person with sole decision making power because it's leads to psychosis.