It's all quite disappointing. I was never lucky enough to get any sort of job promised training, nevermind funded. It took over 100k, 4 countries and no less than 12 yrs from leaving school to even be in a position where I could apply for a BA direct entry role. That was working and saving, university, flight training, delays, 2 previous pilot jobs with a Covid bankruptcy.
We all faced our challenges in getting the job and mine are no more important than the next guy's. My point is I just hope these guys will be clever enough to distance themselves from all this when they eventually do come to LHR. Lest they find themselves torn to shreds by some of our more "direct" colleagues, it won't be pretty.
The bit that got me the most was that they genuinely saw themselves as some sort of heroes taking a stand against big bad BA. They also thought they would have the backing of the wider BA pilot body. BA did put them firmly back in their box and they were given an ultimatum to retract their demands and issue an apology. That's what i was told at least by what I would consider to be a credible source. There were 2 or 3 ringleaders and they seem to have led (misled?) a much larger group.