In this case it would appear that BA pulled the plug on the Concorde early. This has caused a material change in the expectations of the engineers and the promises made by management or implicit in their contracts.
Please spare the Violins - "Material change in the expectations" - what complete and utter nonsense. Like many thousands of other people I was in a good secure job. Suddenly the economy goes tits up and my job isn't so secure anymore. I was given a reasonable pay-off and took the long walk. Nine months on I'm still looking for another job. Am I bitter towards my former employer? Not one bit. They did what they had to do for the survival of their business.
When employers need to make people redundant, legally. they must look at alternatives such as redeployment. BA have done that, offereing FE's the chance to retrain as CC. If the market was better then I assume they would have offered retraining as Flight Crew, subject to age. If redeployment is not an option then redundancy or early retirement is the next step.
I have no idea what package BA are offering to those being made redundant. There are two scenario's.
1. The legal minimum
2. An enhanced redundancy/early retirement package.
If BA are going along the first route then I feel very sorry for the FE's. While they are doing nothing illegal it is wrong to treat long serving employees in this way.
If they are taking option 2 and it is substantially better than the legal minimum then I see little grounds for the FE's to strike. All that will happen is they will lose a month or so's salary while on strike and end up with the same package they were offered. Alternatively, BA could withdraw their offer and give the legal minimum.