Contract tennis

Having decided to lay a bunch of people off for their own incompetence, my munificent masters have decided to present me (and others in my position following our incorporation) with a variation in terms of employment. We will work 7% more hours each week and have to give two months' notice, in exchange for which we will receive a 3% pension contribution and some healthcare options for which I'm ineligible. I also get one day extra holiday a year due to length of service and have a month to sign this. Our initial response was -- collectively -- something less than positive. This has nevertheless been tempered as follows:

Thank you for this email; it goes a long way towards clarifying our concerns and has certainly improved our collective perception of the variation letter. While the general consensus is that the offer is attractive, it does contain fundamental changes to our current contract that need further discussion. We want to raise these collectively so that they can be addressed in an open and practical manner, but there are different priorities that may require some individual negotiations. We appreciate that these kinds of mergers will inevitably entail new ways of working and we're keen to participate in this process and highlight some points.
A number of us are overdue or imminently due performance and pay reviews. We feel that outstanding appraisals should be addressed before we consider variations to the contract and that these will help to inform a smoother integration.
The proposed new benefits offer advantages over our existing contracts, but there is scope to clarify how these are taxed, their coverage and portability, and how individuals might opt in or out if they already pay for some of these benefits themselves. There are a number of other more or less tangible benefits that [the new company] offers which aren't mentioned in the letter but probably should be presented as part of this package, such as sickness benefit, share issue, budgets for training, opportunities to work from home, and how rewards for results will work.
Some fundamental variations in the new terms will need further discussion. It's not clear how the increase in number of hours is offset by the proposed benefits. Holiday allocations have not been normalised so that anyone at [the previous company] for less than two years will lose out under the new terms. The increased length of notice period is another concern and the new variation letter should show reference to our current contract. We would also like to see more emphasis placed on personal development: how will the new structure allow us to progress within the company, both in terms of training and responsibility? For example, extra hours in the contract might be allocated explicitly to personal development.
We would like to engage these issues in a positive and constructive way and discuss how changes to our contract will enable us as a company to progress following the merger.

But even after this effort to be constructive, we should perhaps refer our employers to the Wilson and Alcan cases that will slap down their bollocks straight away... I await a response with baited breath, not least because it'll come to me as I was the muggins at the forefront of this collective bargaining nonsense. I have already set my RSS feeds to collect from CW, Monster, et al.