Is your Supervisor the Real Safety Hazard?

truck_accident_llv_overturnedPostal Tsunami by Mel Carriere – April 11, 2015

Excerpts:

“Speeding and not wearing a seat belt were admittedly both very poor decisions on the part of this letter carrier, who is paying the price for his recklessness. But it is not surprising to me that he did it, because we see this sort of thing every day, mostly among our newest employees, the RCAs and CCAs of the world, who get caught cutting corners all the time in a desperate attempt to shave a second here and a second there to appease the ridiculously unrealistic expectations of their supervisors. What is surprising to me is the lack of fingers I see pointing at Postal Management, who undoubtedly created the climate that sent this RCA flying from his vehicle and his LLV flipping over across the median, where it came to rest considerably worse for the wear in the unnatural position it appears in the above photo. If the condition of the LLV is any clue, I shudder to think about how the driver wound up.”

“Here we are in the present, therefore, pointing a self-righteous finger at this young man instead of directing our digit toward where it really belongs, which is Postal Management.  And such is the reason why these abusive practices and policies never get changed; because we focus too much on the symptoms of the disease – the RCA that flipped his vehicle over and is now lying in a hospital bed; and not on the underlying cause of the disease – this being the supervisors and managers pushing this unfortunate fellow, all of whom are sleeping tonight in their own beds.  We all nod solemnly at that stand up talk, say of course we agree that he should have been wearing his seat belt and that’s the end, the investigation stops there.  Delivery supervisors are never held accountable for their culpability in shamelessly dishing out unrealistic expectations to employees driving dangerous, poorly maintained vehicles in order to drive meaningless, misleading, manipulable “variances” that are the end all of everything in the management mindset.  Maintenance supervisors are rarely held accountable for faking reports to keep this chicken wire and duct-tape patched LLV fleet illegally and immorally on the road.  And meanwhile this poor kid lying in the hospital somehow winds up as the villain of the piece, rather than the victim that he really is.”

via The Postal Tsunami by Mel Carriere: Is your Supervisor the Real Safety Hazard?

One thought on “Is your Supervisor the Real Safety Hazard?

  1. Union and NAME of Local/Branch
    Tri-County Area Local 3800
    Office held, if any
    Maintenance Craft Director
    Totally agree with management being the culprit behind such accidents. I see it every day at the station I work. Carriers using vehicles they shouldn’t be using. They need to make management do their job that is to provide them with the means to perform their jobs in a safe manner. Taking drive outs because management didn’t provide enough vehicles. We all need to stop working unsafe because of management’s tactics of bullying employees to get what they want. Remember safety first, until you get hurt, then it is your own fault!!!!

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