I can completely understand and sympathise with the 'why bother' attitude on the AOA. But to me being in the AOA is akin to inoculations....if everyone else has their kids inoculated for any particular disease, then you don't need to bother inoculating your kid(s). In fact, it is quite smart not to as there is always a risk in having your child(ren) inoculated. The only benefit in being innoculated is not getting sick - but then what were the chances of you getting sick in the first place? Its hard to justify the benefits in the absence of something until you have personally experienced the malaise being prevented.
So to complete the metaphor, the subs are the small risk and the rewards are in you getting 'less sick' or having less degraded CoS.
The only way either side can ever prove they are right is by having 100% in the union acting cohesively or no one in any union and letting the company and individual come up with their own terms and conditions.