aer lingus won't allow me cancel

please help. I have a group of 11 who are supposed to fly with aer lingus on sat 22nd from cork. aer lingus have told us they cannot gaurantee the flight will not be affected by the strike and we may not know this until sat morning. we have an option of traveling with another airline to a different airport to get to our original destination. problem is aer lingus will not refund us if we cancel our flight even though they will not gaurantee us our flight. what are our rights regarding this? do we have the right to cancel and get full refund? I have only got till tomorrow to book the new flights where as if I wait till saturday it will be too late and we wil be stuck and miss our trip. very few other flight options from cork on saturday.
please someone help.

I am so sorry to hear of your plight . Had this nsty problem a few times over the decades when I had clients in same situation with Aer lingus or other airlines -all had same rigid attitude which was as you describe.

ring the Joe Duffy show and emphasise your plight, if it's a real sob story they will mention it and maybe shame Aer Lingus into responding??

"..... shame Aer Lingus " ??

Aer Lingus will say they are operating everything, no weather or other forseeable natural causes that will stop flights, that every member of staff is working, - everything is perfect .
-except for a few hundred well-paid cabin crew ( for whose jobs thousands of irish and other unemployed people would kill for) who, alone amongst Lingus staff are still holding out for conditions that are no longer sustainable in that industry or in this economy and refuse to accept conditions that are far better than Ryanair staff enjoy and which would make most employees green with envy.

That's what Aer Lingus would say....
... and that the shame is not with the airline but with those boys and girls in Impact who still think this is 2005.