I worked the ramp at UPS in high school. Everyone else besides me and another kid were there working for free essentially to provide healthcare benefits for their family.

If they can earn $12/hr at McD's, why stay at Envoy? Answer is because they value the benefits. Healthcare and free travel for family. They have no skin in the game, if they leave they aren't giving up a multi million dollar career like a pilot would, nor did they pay $50k for certification in SABRE.

The only real way to help these people and others like them is expand overall job growth so that demand for them increases. Forcing the company to pay more artificially inflates their wage and doesn't help anyone long term. In fact I would argue that the union actually hurts new hire employees because it pays the senior ones an artificially high wage that could be used to up the starting wages. This is what happened with regional FO pay until a few years ago.

That being said it's total BS there is a disconnect between mainline and regional HOWEVER I will say there is also a difference in the caliber of employee at mainline vs regional.

I see this often on my plane, leave a hub worked by mainline and go to a city serviced by Envoy, it's like the c-string came out to play.

FWIW I made $10/hr in 2000 stocking grocery shelves in high school...