"Why would people who worked at an airport that NATS suddenly lost it's contract for lose their jobs?"
Because at the union conference Mr Barron apparently said that he would be worried about massive redundancy payouts if NATS lost the contract at EGCC... Doesn't sound like he wants to keep them, does it? If NATS start walking away from NSL contracts, what do you think they will do with the staff? A surplus of tower controllers... no job for them! Hello redundancy package.
Am I the only one that sees this? These are colleagues for "Eff's sake".