SinBin,
Business is indeed business, but this wonderful industry we are in is the only one I have worked in where companies can screw up people lives and livelyhoods time and time and time again, and we as employees just keep coming back for more.
I'm not having a dig solely at bmi here, but in this day and age a contract of employment should be just that. If people have handed their notice in on the basis of a written and signed contract of employment that should be honoured, it certainly was in my pre-aviation (banking) career.
TB