I am pretty sure the company announced the cut in profit sharing to the rest of the employees prior to the contract being voted on, but I'm not sure. The whole thing in my opinion had to do with the board of directors. They wanted to or needed to pay back investors. In order to accomplish this they shrank profit sharing to 10%, secured a contract with pilots, agreed to terrible stock buyback, and did everything possible to show 4 quarters of profit. This all helped get us on the S&P 500 and investors were able to cash out on a higher stock price. Probably all thought up and hatched by advisers from Deloitte.