I disagree. The company has to negotiate with us, and the clock is running out for them.
This is where your inexperience with unions and how negotiations work really shows.
In a nutshell, you are wrong on this. Your continual reliance on this same belief over and over and over in spite of being told otherwise by people who do have the experience is either willful ignorance on your part or you're just an optimist to a fault.
They do not HAVE to negotiate with us. Look up "surface bargaining". Then look at the history of our management's "negotiations" with our own F/A's as well as our own group and maybe it'll become more clear for you.
They will only negotiate with us seriously when they have INCENTIVE to do so. And no, a negotiating committee sitting across the table with scowls on their faces, arms crossed, demands made, spittal flying, and "vigorously negotiating" as you keep suggesting, is not the incentive that will get anything done. Try asking any of the airline folks here who have been through this just how well "vigorously negotiating" (by the way, would you mind explaining to me exactly what that means to you and how our negotiators should carry that out? I honestly am not sure what that is.) without leverage from the membership works.
Do you WANT to strike? If not, there are ways to get what we want without striking, but it would require the participation of almost everyone. Agree or disagree, a HUGE turnout at the pickets is great leverage. Do the social media tweets your union asks you to. Fly the FAR's, CBA, AFM, FOM, AOM and other controlling documents to the letter. Trust me, following ALL the regs and policies exactly as you're supposed to does not work in the company's favor, and is perfectly legal. If everyone would do this, and I do mean EVERYONE, we would not need a strike AND this would be done quickly.
Instead what we actually get is a bunch of people pontificating about what is "right" and "wrong" in negotiations, how they'll only do things they agree with, or how they think simply paying dues will get it done, or how they "wish" it would go, or it really comes down to the negotiating committee, or how scabs help keep the company afloat during a strike (are you sh****ng me with that one?!). All very intellectual and philosophical. And all guaranteed to drag negotiations out for a very long time, and even work against a positive outcome for the union.
Stop over thinking it. Collectively we aren't the MENSA society. It's a union. If we are to be a SUCCESSFUL union then we need (figurative) baseball bats, not philosophy major textbooks. If you are ever brought in for discipline, do you want a union steward who acts buddy-buddy with the company and who wants meaningful dialogue to reach an amicable conclusion where you get your "fair" comeuppance, or do you want a pit bull with you who has only ONE goal in mind: to keep you out of the frying pan entirely and who will tell the company to go f*** themselves in no uncertain terms if necessary, and who will use every means at his disposal to protect you, even if it means things aren't "amicable" or "reasonable" between the union and company? How do you want your dues used? Why should it be any other way in negotiations?