Judging by the lack of negative posts this must be seen as a...

Judging by the lack of negative posts this must be seen as a really positive step.
Yes, because EQR now don't have to pay the contractors profits, tick.
Cost plus contracts don't necessarily force the contractor to be efficient, as they can't lose. Tick

Biggest tick, this means that EQR management (rightly or wrongly) believe that they will have stable and predictable operations for many years. They are not considering they will be stuck with redundancy and other termination payments (previously contractor had this responsibility but would have just moved personnel onto another site) as they need people and are unlikely to have to enter into costly retrenchment/redundancy scenarios, hence hire their own.

Glad somebody else could explain the rather bizarre reference to RAU.