Why Did The Unions Reject the Offer?

Consider this as a simplified, but familiar and analogous situation:

Renee is in a negotiation to buy your home for $150,000. After weeks of back and forth negotiations she puts forward an offer at your price of $150,000, but only if you completed a series of repairs to the house. You agree, but then before the deal is finalized, she says, "in addition to the repairs I want you to lower the price as well."

Your friends and family might say, "why did you reject Renee's offer?"

Many students, faculty and staff have been asking "why did the unions reject the offer?" The answer is similar to what you might say about Renee's offer, "well it was not the offer that we had originally agreed to." Without getting into the specifics in this post, as a teacher I would like to begin by getting you to consider a possible problem with the way the question is posed. The question suggests that the Administration made a straightforward good faith offer and the Unions rejected that offer. President Curtis enhanced this image when he went on TV to say that he did not know why the Unions walked out when "they got everything they wanted."

Why would anyone go out on strike if "they got everything they wanted?"

If we stop to think logically for a minute, and try to transcend the political rhetoric, we might agree that after months of negotiations, it certainly is not as simple as the Administration made a one-time offer and Unions decided to walk.