Anglo American Platinum fired 12,000 striking miners

[Tiberius]

Let's say "quick" is two weeks. That's beyond reasonable isn;t it? If we could get something like this sorted out, slammed through all the paces and handled in two weeks I'd sing a hail mary...and again I agree on all counts.. However, during those two weeks....the employees wont be working, correct? Sounds like a strike. Surely we wouldn't want to suggest that they be forced (or coerced) into involuntary labor. Similarly I cant imagine a scenario in which a company is forced to renegotiate a lawful contract with a union.

To me, a strike is choosing not to work despite your contractual obligation to do so. In this country, people strike because they want more money or more benefits, despite them signing contracts which set their salaries at certain levels. This is a different case, where the company is the one in breach of a contract, and as such, the workers have no legal obligation to work. Essentially, contract law should work like this:

If a contract is agreed upon, and the worker violates their contract, the company is within their rights to fire the worker.
If a contract is agreed upon, and the company violates that contract, the worker is within their rights to refuse to work.

In the first instance, the worker is under a contractual obligation to work, and by choosing to not work, is striking. In the second instance, the worker is under no contractual obligation to work (since the company have effectively negated the contract), and thus their choice not to work is not a strike.

How do you know. Some contracts are written with a clause that means you do not have to follow the letter of the contract-

for instance

Any loopholes are effectively made invalid by this clause: "Atheist Forums reserves the right to enforce the following rules as the staff sees fit. This disclaimer is for the sake of allowing the spirit of the rules to trump any literal interpretation of the rules."

Consequently the strikers only have to operate within the spirit of the contract.

Comparing an informally written set of rules against a formally written (and legally binding) document isn't really a fair comparison. A contract usually is several pages long, simply to ensure that there can be no doubt about what the terms of the contract is, and so that nobody can interpret the "spirit" of the contract in any other way than that in which it is written.

Unless you can give me an actual example of a contract with such a clause, I don't believe you have a valid point.