I certainly think that suggestions that any offer must be put to the membership are a little barmy. Union members elect representative to, you know, represent them after all! Though I do have some sympathy with a view that the current offer must at least occasionally be put to the membership. Perhaps on the same frequency as a re-ballot is required? You could even do them together:
Ballot Paper One: Here is the current offer [insert details of offer] do you wish to accept this offer? Yes/No
Ballot Paper Two: If a majority your fellow members vote 'No' to ballot paper one then [insert usual wording for strike mandate ballot paper]
Or something along those lines anyway.
But certainly any suggestion that the Government/employer makes any change to the offer (as you say something pitiful like 0.2% increase) means a referendum is just crackers. We don't go and hold a vote every time Parliament proposes some new legislation because we elected a bunch of representatives to get into that for us and then every five years we get to vote on whether we want to keep those representatives or if we think they've done a rubbish job. Unions have the same mechanism. If the membership think their reps and national leadership are doing a rubbish job vote them out for new ones...
And that’s precisely the point i made in one of my earlier posts
ASLEF operate on a democratic basis. Our senior negotiators are there to act on our behalf and thrash out the best deal they can
ASLEF are perfectly within their rights to reject an offer and request further negotiations. This is where we currently are.
ASLEF keep inviting the DFT & Gov for furher talks, and the Gov refuse
The Gov or the TOCs have no business insisting their offer be put to ASLEF members. As i said, we the members don’t need to see the offer. We’re paying our membership subs for our senior negotiators to thrash out a deal. When they feel there is a deal worthy of merit, then they’ll put it to us for balloting.
Any attempt to circumnavigate this process, deal directly with members is called ‘inducement’ and is illegal.
The collective bargaining methods are in full flow. ASLEF members continue to re-ballot for continued industrial action with huge turnouts and overwhelming mandates.
The Gov need to respect the collective bargaining laws and get back around the table