wascrew - The point is the T&Cs available to legacy crew prior to the VR commit date were changed after crew members had locked in their decision to leave...
As I understand it from friends who are former or current cabin crew, legacy and Mixed Fleet:
All the crew were made aware of the proposed significant changes to T&Cs well before their "decide" date.
On the basis of the information they had at their decision date many legacy crew chose to take VR (many left it until literally the last minute before pressing the exit button).
Very shortly thereafter the company and the Union suddenly reached agreement on changes to T&C that reduced the damage and made the T&Cs for those remaining somewhat less arduous.
Result is the legacy crew who chose to stay on at BA have certainly done better than they were expecting (,hence autothrottle's post)
Some of those that left BA via VR may feel slightly like they've been the victims of something a little, shall I say, questionable?
Having said that maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't have happened this way if UNITE/BASSA had got into the room with BA a bit earlier than they did - who knows...
I do have some sympathy with some of those on legacy Fleet who took VR..I also have a lot of sympathy with Mixed Fleet.