The employer did not hire them into the job description CRJ Captain, they were hired as CRJ First Officers, which required only a wet ink commercial (I got hired with relatively wet ink on mine, 420 hours, now I have 2000 and I fly a C207, with gobs of PIC time). Now as a CRJ First Officer they are allowed to upgrade when they become qualified and are senior enough, it is not the company's responsibility to qualify you to fly an aircraft, if you hadn't intended on being a professional FO (which people do) then you should have built your experience further before going to the airlines.
Actually, I think that's exactly what their responsibility is. If it wasn't, then I would have been responsible for paying for my own sim time. There are a lot of jobs out there that will pay to further the education of their executives, (advanced degrees, etc...) why should aviation be any different.