Of course ALPA has some control over telling thier pilot groups that a contract is good or bad before it goes to vote as well as fostering unity within a pilot group and industry as a whole. Your so called table scraps are mainline flying that was outsourced to companies and pilots willing to undercut mainline and each other for the opportunity to be the lowest paid. If your regional airline is so valuable and cost effective then put your own paint on it and start selling tickets yourself.

The markets and industry surely can afford to put all flying at mainline. It just takes the will of management to actually want to run an airline not a piggy bank for corporate bonuses. There is absolutely no reason that mainline cannot have reasonable payscales for all aircraft down to BE-1900's as an entry level aircraft. Just think of the ability to control the brand and quality of the product. United just rated second as one of the meanest airlines to fly on in the americas (domestic), any coincidence that nearly 50 percent of thier domestic flying is done by regionals? Most mainlines have lost complete control over the quality of thier product for domestic operations.

What you now consider table scrapes used to be mainline career paying flying.