That is obviously a hard choice to make, but I believe it is a symptom of any industry that ranks its employees by seniority rather than merit.
We are all ranked by merit; if we don't pass our check ride and line check we don't get paid. What metric would you like to use? The only metric that mangement wants to use is who will vote for crap pay raises the fastest. Some pilot groups are better than that than others in that area. Horizon voted in their rates 9+ years ago and only now are others coming close to matching their rates. And in that time, top notch outfits like express jet and Air Whiskey have been hammered because management could always found another group vying for their merit badges from management.