In this story, you (the PSA pilot) are Prometheus. And because you have done wrong, your sentence is to be chained to the rock of PSA for eternity so that Bedford can feast on your concessionary contract for the next 10 years. You do not get to go to Legacy, you dont get to jump on their seniority list. Everyday you get to wake up and live with that contract.
That's a little too much of a dramatic reference. The PSA pilots did what's best for them. Not everyone wants to be a 8th year regional FO. A lot of the current senior corp of regional pilots upgraded to CA relatively quickly compared to FOs at regionals today who have been this way for 5-10+ years. It's easy to judge when one only spent 12 mos to 3 years as FO and have since upgraded and always made at least 60k or higher. The sooner people can accept that it's a dog eat dog world and no one will help you get the TPIC time for a major, the better off everyone will be. This is just another side affect of the so-called seniority system we are all stuck to. It's the one thing in this profession we all have no control over yet it controls 100% of pilot lives and careers. So when a group makes a decision to come out better in the seniority game, it's understandable. The regional model is broke. It broke a long time ago when CAs started making 6 figures and could out-earn legacy FOs on even the biggest equipment. The point of regional airlines is to do outsourced work at a much cheaper cost than mainline. This is an industry attempted correction to what the regional airline was suppose to be.