I expect this has been planned all along. Open bases with stupid conditions, see if we can get away with it, give in to show we are bargaining in good faith when we get complaints. Looks like the provident fund joke will slip through though.
Just like when the FAU won the few improvements such as night stopping rather than turnarounds on a couple of through the night flights, something that would not have been able to continue under the new AFTLs anyway.