Vs_lhr, do you never tire of defending the company, for an office based person you are very very dedicated. I wish the company had put as much effort into this from the off as you do.
Maybe it's because I'm still passionate about VS (surely you felt that way at least once?). Or maybe it's because I'm a complete insomniac and there's nowt on telly. I mean, it's 1.30am and I'm still on the internet.
Vs_lhr, your message that the strike is costing the company far more, so why not return to the table for talks, is it a case of not chopping off nose spite face ?
I don't think it's quite as simple as that. Salaries are like compound interest, and will be a bill that grows every year. The cost of the strike will be damaging, but a potentially recoverable one-off cost. Depending on how hard the knock-on effects of the strike bites, that recovery could range from minor cutbacks to large-scale redundancies. The most important number in a company finances are its ongoing operating costs - the one-off hits obviously need to be taken into account, but they will swallow them if they know their going into a year where projected turnover outstrips projected costs.