Yep, certainly partly guilty as charged with reference to rose (red nosed) tinted specs. I think I foolishly half believed these guys "might" have been a slightly better class of LoCo . . . . looking increasingly like the rot is setting in quicker than anyone could have anticipated.
Most of us enquired about Union membership, and were told as we were not governed by the K agreement , we couldn't be bona fida members & could only sign up for associate membership, the sole benefit of which was a magazine /newsletter in Norwegian
Subsequent (possible) implication of NPF in Crewings inability to show their previous flexibility vis a vis positioning etc, has left most of my fellow contractors somewhat ambivalent/suspicious of exactly where we sit in the NPF's grand scheme of things, but. . .as I said, they negotiated this 2yrs then permanent deal (no doubt with one eye on securing/increasing their own influence on future events) with (perhaps) something for us as a handy byproduct, so I was merely questioning whether NAS were interpreting it the way NPF wanted (to which I guess the short answer is no)
I am most certainly not anti-Union (experience of Ryanair has shown me the result of the alternative) but neither am I blind to how they have in the past handled mergers /redundancies etc. . both in NAS & Europe wide in other cases. As a Contractor it appeared there was very little they could offer me, so why am I going to spend the money until that situation is resolved ? Incidentally, all the guys who took the crummy ARPI contract in HEL (I guess the one you didn't take) managed to get core positions back in June (including a couple of line trainers who swapped seats for the core contract) so, it would have worked out for you in the end, but no-one could have foretold/promised that with any conviction 18-21 mths ago.