Fordran,
I think on reading your post that the only advice to give in this instance is for you to look elsewhere for another employer. They obviously are not willing to respect you decision and by the sounds of it your union is as much good as a chockie fireguard.
You alone have to stand by your standards and stand your ground.It sounds crap but that is what the job entails and why you have a licence.
You may think that there are only a dozen people to stand up but I can assure you there are many more who would not hesitate to say no if undue pressure were applied and rightfully so but thankfully in todays day and age these incidents just dont happen very often thank goodness.
rwm
If your aircraft arrives with an MEL overrun then the only course of action is to ground it untill some positive action is taken (ie,defect rectified) especially if the spares are available and the item can be rectified.The aircraft is out of commision,well thats the real world for you and there are no excuses for that I'm afraid whether it was at a minor base or not.
You can always ask for a concession but this will have to go to your relevant NAA and the first question they will ask is "why do the company fell the need for this as the aircraft can be repaired at your base as you have the spares ? As this is the case various other questions will be asked and in the long run it will be quicker and less embarassing for your company to rectify the defect and accept the delay as it is.
At the end of the day I can say I have never been asked to sign anything I am not happy with and hope the situation never arises.Amongst all the engineers I have had the pleasure to meet in this industry the vast majority are professionals with a great degree of common sense who on every basis have the intelligance to base there judgements accordingly as to the situation concerned.
I am sure some idiot will prove me wrong on some occasion but that is life and I wont change my thinking just to appease him,that will be his problem.