Two individuals on opposite sides of a dispute like this don't both send open letters to the same newspaper, at the same time, by accident. This exchange is very carefully orchestrated, and given the medium (Mirror) I guess it was Woodley who's carrying the olive branch. Willie is still in the driving seat.
I'm not sure that Woodley is exactly waving the white flag here. He pretty much rehashed the union line; 'The company is not listening to crew...'; 'Proud of solidarity .... (!?)'; 'No doubting strength of feeling....'; 'The crew offered (!?) £50M but BA wanted more....' and so on.
Then he got to what was wanted; 'Assurances, not fine words ...(what does that mean?); 'No plum jobs (routes?) to 'cheap staff'....' (not sure what the cheap staff would have to say) and the "Sticking Point"; 'punishment of fine crew defending their rights (or something like that)' ie; Staff Travel. Oh and then he mentioned the possibility of further strikes in a couple of weeks.
Walsh got pretty much to the point and highlighted that the union have not stopped BA .... much. Then, after a few niceties, he pretty much made an offer - I think.
"So I say to you: give your members a voice. Let cabin crew vote on the offer put forward.
It includes a four-year deal on pay - with a freeze in year one and then rises of up to 3% or 4%. Existing crew would stay the bestrewarded in the UK industry. Even though the courts say we do not have to, we have addressed Unite's main demand for more crew on flights.
We would recruit 184 extra staff.
The offer also paves the way for new long-haul opportunities for Gatwick crew, who would like a bigger network and are paid significantly less than their Heathrow colleagues. And it sets out a plan to modernise our industrial relations so we can avoid this kind of damaging dispute in the future."
And then finally, something to the effect that "UNITE and Shop Stewards have been talking for too long - put it to the membership." I know his last sentence was a bit cheesy - "Give peace a chance" - but his letter was far more representative of someone with a plan.
Roger.