This particular offer is not particularly attractive and hardly going to get the juices running. In fact they will only earn (very little) if they get their staff back on-side. Exactly the sort of incentive staff would want their bosses to have.
You could certainly argue it's crass bad management. Yes, it's a complex subject, more so because we're not privy to the terms of the vesting, but it's open to very easy misunderstanding and really doesn't help get anyone, as you put it, "back on-side". Rant all you like about Unions but someone, somewhere, somehow is going to have to make this a cohesive business if it's going to pay off that pension deficit.