I’m dismissing union leadership decisions as nonsense, not the workers’ issues. We actually had something similar happen in my city with this election. City needed a debt override to be popularly voted in to finance construction of a much needed new fire department HQ, but the firefighter union (and really all unions) have a terrible relationship with the mayor so they campaigned AGAINST it. It failed. Now they won’t get the new HQ unless they fire a bunch of firefighters or, i dunno, have a wicked successful bake sale or some shit. It was literally in no one’s best interest for the ballot question to fail but pure political shitassery made them campaign against their own and everyone’s interests even when significant time and even money was spent explaining in excruciating detail why there was no other choice than the debt override for it to happen.

You can only do so much to explain things to people before the burden falls on them to (a) listen in good faith, and (b) try to not be dumbshits.