I do agree that they should be focusing on renegotiations, what's currently happening is they're letting a lot of reporters get away with framing the situation as a "loss" for the union.
I don't fully grasp your irritation regarding the focus on the union itself, it's supposed to be a representation of the workers as a baseline.
If union negotiates X,Y,Z into their contract and a year later the company offers an upgraded Z2, the union doesn't get it because it’s not in their contract.
That’s just how labor negotiations work.
Have you participated in a real union somewhere before and read through the bylaws and such?
An employer is never going to give a union a freebie. Just like a union would never give the employer a freebie. Why? Because the very nature of a union involves bargaining over a fixed contract for a period of time.
And every time a new contract negotiation happens the union will want X and the employer will want Y. Why would either side give the other something without getting something in return? That's just bad negotiation.
I’m happy about workers fighting for rights union or not… but what gets me irritated is rhetoric that focuses on the union itself and not the workers.
In this case… The union agreed to its contract, people should stop whining about what they agreed to. You want now you have to wait until it’s time to renegotiate. You wanted a deal that only gets updated periodically when the contact is up, that’s the mechanics of what you agreed to.