sr jumbo - perhaps I can throw some light on the situation in answer your query. When Virgin were laying people off post 9/11, several of us who were rated on the 744 and below the redundancy cut wew interviewed by GSS and offered jobs. We were due to start early in 2002, but as G-GSSA took ages to put on the UK register, our start date got put back several times. However, as 2002 progressed - it appeared that our jobs with Virgin were likely to be safe and we wern't made redundant or put on unpaid leave, as the 744 had taken on most of the Classic's work and they couldn't afford to lose the 744 rated pilots. We also noticed that GSS was employing non type rated pilots ahead of us.
We suspected that as Virgin had realised that in the end that no 744 pilots would be made redundant, there was a 'no poaching' agreement between the chief pilots of the companys - as there often is in these events. It could be that the agreement (if there was one) is still in place.