Ancient Observer:
Interesting comments. Thank you.
I'm not inclined to believe that BASSA and its Reps truly believe the majority of their representations..though I do believe they WANT to believe which can produce the same poor result.
I understand that part of the nature of Union business is drawing together your membership by identifying a perceived shared injustice. You can't have a strike without some of that occurring.
However you can take it so far as to be detrimental to your cause.
My personal suspicion is that BASSA Representatives lack the knowledge or sophistication to understand the basics of negotiation or the ability to recognize the nuanced messages that will occur in the process.
Therefore, as they have to have SOMETHING to represent to their members, we see the constant inaccurate and overblown rhetoric coming from their side as they talk AT their members. I truly believe they have enough self-awareness to know what they are doing is ineffective and having a negative impact on their membership, but its rather a case of not being able to stop themselves from singing off-key to an ever diminishing choir.
As time winds down to the next milestone I expect to hear even more of the same.