This meeting should've happened years ago. Plain and simple. You can't replace a face to face meeting (that's partly why we have jobs right? to help people get real work done?) with a phone call to someone you've never met. Just doesn't work.

If any barriers existed between the groups I believe they were torn down this week. Maybe not entirely but it was a good first step in opening the lines of communication between the groups and being unified on not allowing management to play us against each other.

I don't know what the final bill was, but this burned out guy found the meeting to be potentially invaluable down the road. My two pennies.