Who reports to work without a contract you haven' t seen in its entirety? or even voted on? Yes, it does happen, and some may even say its a normal formality. It's not normal or smart.
Here is an honest answer:
7 weeks are up and unemployment begins. There is a lot of pressure from your state level and sometimes the federal level that they are putting on the unions in order not to pay out unemployment benefits. The states / feds will lose funds in their coffers, but in your case, the funds will come from union pensions. This of course will make the pension liabilities grow deeper in debt than they already are.
Ratification should come before any workers return to work. This gives the union employee time to look over the new agreement and make a sound logical decision. If you don't see the complete agreed upon contract, then you wont be aware of the hidden things (that you didn't quite understand) later.
The push to go to work before ratification is because of unemployment kicking in - plain and simple.
Yes , more politics are driving your life.