The discussions were scheduled before the results of the vote were known.

VP flight ops got canned recently, and the COO is probably hanging by a thread (diversity politics may have saved her). A couple other managers went as well. The CEO probably waded in himself to appease the board, who cannot be happy with overall performance this year. CEO presumably bought himself some time by sacrificing a few goats, but he probably needs to achieve some new results fairly soon. I'm guessing he needs less operational disruption (which in large part hinges on hiring and retaining pilots, and also on pilots being in a good mood and maybe willing to step up to help when the op goes south). Also there's a lot of bad press, and a lot of that revolves around pilots, shortage, and labor actions.

Those two things probably influence the board a fair bit. The CBA is at the heart of it all.