I agree with you if I am allowed to wordsmith your sentence to..."proactive negotiation works better, imo". I think this MEC has been proactively demanding.....whether it was the contract negotiations or the ERP. They then follow up their rebuffed "demands" with communiques the essence being an emotional " We fought hard for you and the company is stiff arming us".

Nonetheless, you and Gunfighter are onto something. Basically, stop with emotional arguments and weigh each argument based on $$$ and data, you know, like a business.