The strike as an exercise in critical thinking

 Late on Sunday night, after mediation had broken down and the strike was unavoidable, the Dark Side sent out a piece of propaganda (we're unclear what happened to the communication blackout at that point) that our bargaining team had rejected their last offer.  Which they went on describe, shall we say 'creatively', their offer of a 9.5% increase in salary.  This was at best a misrepresentation. It was transparently an attempt to confuse and mislead UMFA members. You've read me rant about that.

 Now, here's where the critical thinking/reading/writing skills should (and for many of us did) kick in. What are those skills? Among other things, we always ask our students to consider a) who is providing the information, b) what do they want you to believe, and c) what are their starting assumptions.  Had we all done that, we would have cut through some of the confusion and wouldn't have started this job action in the state we did.  

a) who is providing the information?  The Dark Side. Hardly a neutral, disinterested party.  (As I hope I have said, or implied, UMFA's information is also cherry-picked and spun in the directions that we want people's thinking to go. And I hope it's clear that I am squarely in the camp of the union, which also cannot and should not be regarded as a neutral, disinterested party.)

b) what do they want people to believe? They wanted us to believe that, after 50-odd years of poor increases, and several years of 0% offers, the Dark Side had magically and magnanimously come up with 9.5% (over two years) across the board, that the union's bargaining team wase unable to recognize the amazing offer for what it was, and that they rejected said offer out of hand without bringing it to the membership. Since the only thing in the propaganda was about the supposed salary offer, that this is all about salaries.

c) What to they assume? The media, the public, and (apparently) some of my colleagues, are distracted and not cognizant of the myriad issues up for bargaining; that in the absence of that knowledge, it's all about salary; that people won't look past whatever surface information they provide

To counter this, how do we apply critical thinking? Well, what are the odds that this information, coming from an involved party (after weeks of silence), is unadulterated and easy to understand at first blush? Well, presumably poor. Consider the source, and what they want you to believe. Consider the absence of any supporting figures, like how much the whole proposal would actually cost in dollars, whether it would be distributed equally, or equitably, or (as they apparently wish to represent) across the board?

Their goal in deploying this 'information' was to destabilize the union membership's resolve, weaken our position, and make us look greedy and out-of-touch among the public and the media. They were unfortunately successful.  It took a couple days for UMFA's information to come out, which exposed the disingenuous smoke-and-mirrors nature of the 9.5% figure. Which I'm glad they did, even if a little late to counter the damage done.

There are always people who don't respect the strike.  That's fine.  Their business.  I mean, not fine, but their business, so whatever. After the confusion caused by the Dark Side's clumsy propaganda move, many more people considered breaking the strike, and in fact we know of some who actually did.  I really hope I don't learn who these people are because I don't want to libel anyone.  But I don't trust them. And I especially don't trust their critical thinking.