Who said anything about a national seniority list? One quick easy fix would be to stop a disparaging pay scale yrs 1-12 for both FOs and CAs. A great example is the Hawaiian A330 CA scale. 1st year to 12th year is all within $195-$199/hr. The entire scale within 4 dollars. That's how it should be for both FOs and CAs. Climbing up each FO and CA ladder, in those ladders there shouldn't be a huge disparaging scale. It would make it that much easier to start over at another major airline.
As for merit, the rest of corporate America works that way. No one gets to be a manager simply because he's "been there a long time." I was an engineer before and it would be ridiculous to think I could just go to my boss and say I've been here 5 years so it's time now for my promotion to Manger of engineers in my department. How well do you think that would go over? You move up the list based on your merit and work accomplishments. In my anti-politically-correct merit system, no offense but if you fail upgrade twice I don't want you flying my family. (UPS BHM). Or in the case of the Colgan BUF crash, failures all around through nearly every checkride, in my merit based system, this person would not upgrade either. This is a serious business of flying complex machines and transporting human lives. There is no room for incompetence. I can understand a bad day in the sim, and would obviously excuse that, but a systematic problem would be eliminated in a merit based system as opposed to being protected in a seniority system... both the job via ALPA and "training" issues (read: multiple failures).
As for bidding, I'd be perfectly fine with a rotating system to ensure everyone knows what's it like to be in the bottom of the totem pole for some months. Eg, Emirates, pilots assigned groups A-F and rotate each month top to bottom. This way when the super senior do make it to ALPA rep positions, they don't forget about the junior pilots and reserve life.
Seniority should be what gets you your shot, but performance should be what keeps you in that seat. But what do I know...
I understand, but is performance really keeping them in the seat if they fail multiple times and then finally pass the type ride and/or PC? Like that saying even a blind squirrel will eventually one day find an acorn.