Frankly I'm appalled at the impact this will have on people's lives and the utter disregard of that fact by the people in charge.

I agree the locals will suffer as a result of this stupidity, but I think that the most effective means of resolving the situation is to have as many of the locals demonstrating as possible (I just read Safe's post regarding Marla and here reference to demonstrations).

The more people demonstrating the quicker this will be resolved and possible they may be better off in the end. Being out of work for 2-4 weeks is better than "180" days.

All I'm getting at it appears to me that if all the companies took the same action at the same time it would have a more powerful impact.