in a buyout, my understanding is that when 90% of the shares are aquired then the remaining shares are compulsorily sold. You dont have a choice "not" to sell them.
The law is complex on acquistions and mergers but the small shareholding of the staff and non institutional shareholders by comparison to the massive shareholdings of the institutional investors make the deal a forgone conclusion one would think.
In terms of the staff banding together to stop the buyout would not be remotely possible as we would need to raise nearly 2 billion dollars of share script to do that.
As the Actu and the fAAA have indicated, the best hope is that the government and regulators step in. This is clearly a good deal for shareholders but not a good one potentially for Qantas or its staff in the longer term.
once qantas is owned as a private company it is far less open to scrutiny like a publicly listed company. The best source of information on the take over are Robert Gottleibsens writings in the papers and also the finincial review.
For its part i am sure the ACTU and Qantas Unions will have a view on this stuff and provide updated informations to their members as they did on thursday and friday. On the FAAA website and via email you can find some preliminary comment from the Qantas unions and the ACTU