It's not necessarily Republican assholiness, I think it is a congenital flaw in managers, Dem or Rep, Con or Lib, probably caused by neckties interfering with blood flow to the brain. When in high school, I worked one Christmas at the Post Office, sorting mail. We were all forced to lean on a special stool while we monotonously placed mail in a rectangular grid of cubbyholes based on town (pre Zip-code days!). Note I said lean, we were not allowed to sit, and had to adjust the seat at a 45 deg angle so it was impossible to properly rest, so my flat feet usually wound up becoming intolerably painful by the end of the shift.

There was no possible reason for this, other than to just ensure that workers did not get comfortable, as if that somehow compromised productivity, order or discipline. Managers had to be on their feet, flitting about tormenting everyone, so dammit, everyone else had to also.

The Piss Bag Protocol was no doubt a maneuver designed to prove the manager was actually trying to DO something, because let's face it, in most industial operations conditions soon become optimized around a given situation, and managers really have little to do. They have to do something to keep THEIR managers happy who in turn have a constant mandate to continue boosting productivity. The law of diminishing returns is at work here. Unless the work environment is fluid and changing, after a while even the best manager has streamlined his people as best they can be, any further "improvement" is just for drill.