I worked for two separate studios, one at DreamWorks and one at Disney, that were both involved in this saga, and both have since been shuttered. (Edit: to clarify they were involved as part of the class, not to my knowledge involved in collusion.)
Full disclosure, I also received a check from the class action suit. Of course getting money is nice, but it was like $4k or something, not enough to make any real difference, significantly smaller than the film bonus plans, and on top of that, I never felt like I'd been underpaid or cheated even after this all went public.
Even as an employee, I don't think I ever knew the full story, but the Cartoon Brew articles always struck me as going out of their way to stoke anger and frame things in the most negative possible light, not particularly fair or unbiased.
While I do not in any way intend to defend what Catmull or others did, the fact that not just one but two studios I worked for did close, I've always felt like it is plausible that Catmull truly believed he was doing a good thing for employees in the long term by trying to keep the doors open, and that the threat that they might close was real, that his refusal to apologize was out of genuine belief that he wasn't being selfish. I'm sure it'd be hard to fully buy that if you saw his tax return, but nonetheless is how I still feel when I read these articles again.