Our sups definitely get paid more the more they cut out of the budget, and I’m pretty sure they’re incentivized the more they discipline us too. Also the less they help the company’s bottom line, the more likely they are to get canned.

The hardest move is jump from worker to manager, and there is usually a big difference in income and benefits. So once they are there, they want to move up and make even more money, and get even more perks, like company cars and going to conferences and conventions. Their Allegiance switches from the workers to the management, and they need to prove that loyalty. The competition gets fiercer and fiercer the farther up the ladder they go, because there are fewer and fewer spots, so they have to prove the ability to get results, even if they have to force those results. Eventually they start to see the workers as just getting in the way of a better way of life for him and his family.

To be blunt, it’s managers all the way to the top. Every dumb thing a middle manager has ever said to you was caused by a dumb thing their manager told them needed to happen. My previous job was a middle management position where I was finally making decent money, but the amount of bullshit I had to shield my guys from was just too much for me, and at the end of the day I’d still have to require them to do some dumb shit that they hated because it was mandated by my OWN bosses. I quit that job because everyone above my level was a completely inhuman piece of shit and I couldn’t morally justify working for them, and also I didn’t want to be the bad guy.

This is one of the best things about my supervisor at work. She's kind of flaky but a good person and just does not give a shit about corporate politics. Several people should be fired just by attendance if they had their way but it's all various family issues so as long as production stays on target she keeps them off our back.

You're looking at this backwards.

The only employees who make it to middle management are employees who authentically already care...

...about the company's bottom line. It doesn't matter that 90% of people realize it is a bad idea and wouldn't do it, only that 10% gets to go beyond team manager. And when you look at the distribution of employees this makes sense. As to why? Well that's an individual thing. Maybe naivety and really believing trickle down and they'll be protected for helping the company. Maybe greed and ambition and they realize this is what they have to do to move upward. Maybe some level of sociopathy or narcissism where the desire for power alone is enough to get them going.

And they really get nothing. During layoffs most people don't realize, but middle managers are on the chopping block by default. Less slaves means you need less whip masters. There's no loyalty, benefit or protection as a middle management, all their job is to be disposable villains who take them blame so execs can keep collecting their bonuses with employee moral untouched.

So yeah, makes perfect sense. If there's enough evidence that employees could sue the company, all they have to do is act "appalled" at the actions of "a rogue manager" and then "promptly discipline" them by firing them. While they get other mid-mgmt to keep trying to bust the union through other methods until something sticks.