Because that would have sold the other engineers down the river. So just as your supposedly MEC looks after the WHOLE group, so did ours.
Say what? The engineers it would have retained were the most senior engineers. How would this have sold any of the junior engineers down the river, if anything it would have opened the door to possibly bringing other (junior) engineers off the street and back into a seat?
Instead your MEC fealt it was better to furlough everybody and hinge all the engineers future employment at Atlas on a single arbitration case that may or may not be heard or even ruled on?
A bird in hand...
DBW