Actually enuff, you'll find that the RAH RJ rates were well within "Industry Standard" when they were negotiated. Sadly enough, they still are just about "Standard". Look around at the RJ payscales for 50-seaters and 76-seaters - you'll find that RAH's rates are (distressingly) well within the normal range. Among the many failures of the current contract were that it didn't differentiate between types - only on number of seats, and the pay scale topped out with an "## and up". The idea that RAH got where they are because their pilots underbid everyone else to get the company moving is fiction. Republic still operates on a crappy-but-middle-of-the-road regional contract. They got where they are because mainline kept throwing money at a management team with megalomanical tendencies because it saved them cash in the short term.

Each side in this discussion can throw the "Gave Away Your Store for Shiny Jets" argument - I still remember that bull**** from over at UAL when management flat-out to the pilot group that they could bring the RJs on property, but that would mean fewer big, shiny 777s. We all know how that turned out. Everybody's living in a glass house.