Well I'm gonna go ahead and chime in here flyinaway, because your ignorance is showing and everyone else is being too polite to call you on it. Yes, I said you are IGNORANT. Six months as an intern and a new hire 121 FO does NOT make you a repository for information about how this industry works. Let me lay a couple of terms on you:
Pattern bargaining: a collective bargaining technique in which contract terms in one settlement are used as models to be imposed on other negotiating parties within an industry.

Undercutting: to offer goods or services at a lower price or rate than (a competing price or rate) or than that of (a competitor).

So lets expand on these concepts and apply them to places like TSA, Mesa, Colgan, etc. First of all, when contracts at other carriers (usually the better carriers) are negotiated based on "industry average" you, as someone working for a lower tier company, bring that average DOWN. So that hurts the pattern bargaining that is part of the industry. Company A will look at your company and say "TSA will do it for this much, why won't you?". Of course, I'm oversimplifying but the concept is the same.

Second, undercutting...pretty self explanatory and closely related to the first point. You say your company (and companies like it) don't hurt the industry because you just get paid a few dollars per hour less and have much worse work rules. Fine. What if your lovely CEO Hulas Kulas decides to replace you with a bunch of Oompa Loompas pilots who work for half what you make and accept worse working conditions just for the promise of a work visa and a chance to move to the US? Thats under cutting. Think that would be bad for you or the industry? Thats how some of us at the "better" regionals feel about bottom feeders like Mesa and Colgan. It's no different than you accepting crummy pay and work rules for the promise of quick PIC and a chance to move on 6 months sooner (or in your case, I feel like you took the first thing that came along...always a quality decision).

Now don't get me wrong. I have no disrespect for my fellow pilots. Except the ones who complacently accept the reaming they receive from management out of ignorance or because they don't mind stepping on the back others to "get theirs". We're all in this together and the actions of one group affect the actions and opportunities of the others. You know who I have the utmost respect for and who will ALWAYS have my support? Guys and gals at places like Mesa and Pinnacle who would rather burn the place to the ground than accept a sub-standard contract.