.
Boy howdy did I get this wrong.

As I mentioned in one of my posts on this topic, the Electoral College system used by IATSE allows for the possibility of a minority of the popular vote carrying enough big locals to win the Electoral College. From Deadline Hollywood:

.

Despite the electoral vote in favor of ratifying the Basic Agreement, the total popular vote of the 13 locals was actually against it, with 50.4% voting No and 49.6% voting Yes.

.

My old employer, the Camera Guild voted No:

.

Local 600 leaders, who had recommended a Yes vote on the contract, told their nearly 9,000 members today that “with over 80% of eligible Local 600 voters voting, our members narrowly rejected the tentative agreement 48% to 52%, a difference of 270 votes out of 6,398 cast.”

.

6400 votes cast? Holy turnout, Batman! That means that about 80% of the eligible voters cast ballots. For the last three contracts, the total voting never exceeded 30%. This strongly supports the sentiments of several C99 members who commented on this developing story to the effect that working people in general are starting to rebel.

In a companion story, Deadline Hollywood relates that total turnout for both the Basic Agreement and the various Area Standards Agreements was 72%. That is mind boggling.
.

The traditional idea for management negotiations with unions is to offer just enough to get 51% to vote to ratify. This funky result might not sit so well with the 50.4% who voted no. Whereas I did not think they would do so well, there is no doubt that the leaders of the opposition will consider this both a sham in terms of democracy and vindication for their opposition to Business As Usual.

As I stated in my previous post on this, in my subjective opinion, getting "incremental improvements" at this time in this industry is a real victory. But the people who live and work under the contract do not seem to be content with Business As Usual.

Most outsiders do not understand how tightly the existing leadership structure keeps things under control. The effort that went into selling this contract was Herculean. The leadership was looking for a convincing vote.

They got the opposite -- an ambiguous result that smells just like bullshit.