USApilot,
What did the mechanics have to win by bargaining, seems to me, that the powers that be was already decided. When the first airplane left, they negated to uphold the contract they had written, not exactly an honest move. Secondly, the mechanics ranks has already seen reduction and some of those moves has been pretty harsh, ie the station in Florida. One thing is doing it, another thing is doing it in a reasonable fashion.
You vacilate between defending the company and being against the company. When it involves the pilots and underhanded moves you are against, yet when it comes to every other group, you persist in saying take it or else. Now you are alluding, that the mechanics better come to the table quickly or mgnt will be "vindictive", I must be missing something here, but is this grade school and someone is taking the ball and going home? Further, this should give you pause to think, how this mgnt will react, or more likely, what they will impose on you in the future, contracts notwithstanding.
The U employees wish to see the company succeed, for obvious reasons, however, the company needs the esprit the corps, to make this happen. Apparently it must be an accountant running the show, because it apears this is all about the bottom line, not understanding the human element. reminds me of the movie "Office Space".
Further, and this is not really meant as harsh as it sounds, but there is a big difference between going from 40k to 25K as opposed to going from 200k to 125k.
Just my two cents.