I'll disagree with you on the idea that the membership should get a vote on everything. There are some things that require membership voting where they shouldn't get past the MEC; this TA is not one of them. The MEC vote appears to me to have been done mostly along LUAL political lines. For all of my LCAL brethren, welcome to the dysfunctional politics of the LUAL MEC that has dominated our union for at least 15 years.

I read the opposing point of view to this TA and found their argument lacking. I was troubled by the fact that they stated up front their opposition wasn't about the money portion of the TA and then proceeded to try to poke holes in the TA almost exclusively on the money portion of the TA.

A lot of discussion has been the amount of leverage that we have right now. I don't disagree with that concept. However, in order to maintain leverage over the long term, it must be used judiciously. Overuse of leverage will just result in the company running to the court system. And over the last decade plus a few years, union records in courtrooms are something like 0-20 (made up number; I don't know the actual number but it's abysmal).

So a better question than 'how much leverage do we have' is 'how much leverage do we want to use'? Yes, we may be able to get something better than this TA IF we exert a lot of pressure on the company. Or we can take a very good TA without expending leverage and (likely) overplaying our hand. Pyrrhic Victories suck and this union has had too many Pyrrhic Victories over the last decade.