So leading on from the comments after JMGhee, it appears that this whole thing is simply about trust.
You have all been selected by your management for having the following qualities; leadership, intellect, determination, reliability, high personal standards, motivation, flexibility, together with well developed customer service skills and teamwork. That’s what the advert says, so you should be relatively stable and pragmatic bunch of people.
Three thousand of you have thought long and hard about this developing situation and have come to the conclusion that it is the better of two evils to go for an option which may do damage to your company and yourselves, rather than to rely on the word of a leadership team which is assuring you that there will be no detriment to your terms and conditions in the future.
As a shareholder, I find that rather worrying. I hope the board does too.
Was this apparent total lack of trust the same in the days of RE, or is it a recent thing?