I'd much rather see 1500 hours (and an actual ATP) for any airline job. However 500 hours is double the current (insanely low) minimum. I think current ATP mins and requirements plus an AMA style certification for multi engine multi crew passenger turbine ops should be the entry level standard. ALPA should lobby as hard as it can for at least the 1500 though, of course.

As for any compromise to "keep commuting legal" I doubt that is the case because there is no law, no regulation and no anything that can outlaw commuting. It is not possible. That's like saying pilots can't ever leave their "base" for vacation, family visits, road trips, etc. Will never happen because short of complete totalitarian takeover there is simply no way to even write an enforceable law.

The closest they can come would maybe to mandate you being "in base" a certain number of hours before report and that number would likely be 9 or 10 since that is normal rest and then some for most situations at the beginning of any trip. But you will always be able to "live" wherever you want. The absolute worst that can ever happen is that the junior half of every list/category who commutes will have to come in the day before more often than they already do. That's it. That's the absolute armageddon worst that can ever be enacted.

So to prevent that, we should have to give up other meaningful gains? Hardly. We should fight that kind of commuter restriction, but if we are unable to stop it now then we by definition lack the ability to stop the equivalent.

As for the "we better compromise on this otherwise the ATA will get cabotage" arguement, I don't buy into that. I'm sure the threat has been made, but rest assured that there is no compromise on earth that will stop the ATA from lobbying as hard as they absolutely can to give up our nation's flying to foreign slave labor no matter what the ATP limits are and no matter what the rest and duty rules are. This will be a max effort front burner effort (either publicly or behind the scenes, but full bore either way) by the ATA from now until the end of time. Compromising to stop something they will never give up in any case IMHO is a failed stratedgy.