Can you believe it? Since January 1, 2015 Lionbridge supposedly offered regular status (with corresponding benefits) to temporary workers having worked 9 months on a project

Since January 1, 2015 Lionbridge offered regular status (with corresponding benefits) to temporary workers having worked nine months on a project!
This is what I think I understood from an answer given by the HR Susan Gillespie during a questions and answers meeting attended by a dozen of Tier 1s that took place today around 12.30. 

In a written answer to a question asked by Paul Shattuck (thank you Paul for asking) during a previous Q&A meeting she stated: "employees are converted from temporary status to regular employees after nine months of employment. That policy was put in place in January 2015, in response to the Federal Affordable Care Act. Again, though, Lionbridge was not allowed to unilaterally extend that policy to you and your peers since we were in bargaining with the union".

What prevented Lionbridge to incorporate this new policy into the first contract proposal they gave us in February 2015 instead of not offering any PTO and not offering in any way to modify the temporary status after nine months? What prevented Lionbridge to incorporate this within the final proposal they made in November 2015?
All the Tier 1s who patiently attended very frustrating collective bargaining meetings where Lionbridge systematically refused any change in this direction are certainly highly shocked by such an announcement and attitude. The contract that was rejected by a majority of the Tier1s in November did not include any such proposal while its presence would probably have changed the vote outcome. Making  such a proposal as soon as January 2015 would have drastically changed the process and the Tier1s could have immediately gained one whole year of benefits.
Susan Gillespie keeps trying to put the responsibility of the lack of implementation of this new policy on the union but of course only Lionbridge knew about this change and they never mentioned it as a possibility, quite the contrary.
As for now, we are immediately going to contact Lionbridge to renew the bargaining process about implementing this policy for our lab.
We hope a date can be set as soon as possible and that many of you will be able to attend.
Let us know of your comments and questions.
Take care
PS: Susan Gillespie mentioned the 2015 US Handbook that contained the new policy: we never saw this 2015 handbook while we did see handbooks in 2013 and 2014. Let us know if you had seen it.

Nota: The PTO allocated by Lionbridge to full time "regular' employees is as follow:
Up to 1 year: 14 days / 112 hours
1-2 years:      16 days /  128 hours
2-5 years:      20 days /  160 hours
5+ years:       25 days /  200 hours

The benefits provided by Lionbridge to ful ltime "regular" employees are as follows:
Company Life & Diasability: Yes
PTO: Yes 
Paid holidays: Yes
severance: Yes
401k: Yes
EAP: Yes
Breavement: Yes 
Jury Duty: Yes
LOA: Yes