Well, let's be honest here. That's what we are "supposed" to do.
We all know regionals are only cheap if the pilots don't stay long. Once you hit year $106/hr you're making close to what a 737 captain makes, but you're generating a lot less revenue. Pinnacle has historically been a pretty lousy place to work, and therefore most guys bail out to greener grass. However, it keeps their costs down, and allows them to expand.
Fortunately, ASA has always been a pretty decent place to work, and more and more people are planning on staying here until they turn 65. Unfortunately, that -- not any gains we make in our contract -- will kill us. We could work for sub-Mesa pay, but if the bulk of our pilot group is year 12+ then we are dead. (Furloughing, by the way, won't help us with our costs.)
All the Pinnacle pilots will do by voting in their contract will be to reinforce that it's not a career airline, and pilots will continue to leave there at the first opportunity. That in turn keeps their costs down, and they will continue to grow... until one day they finally stand up for themselves and demand a decent contract. Then, just like ASA, their pilot group will get more and more senior.
Say ASA did the same thing in our next contract, for the sake of argument. If we signed off on a raw deal under the guise that it will make us cheap so we can grow, it still wouldn't do anything. We have too senior of a pilot group for it to matter.
Look at Comair -- they took huge paycuts, gave back all their trophy contract gains, and they're still getting shrunk into oblivion. Payrates aren't the problem there (they're cheaper than us) but their average longevity is killer.
Longevity, my friends, is our problem. Unfortunately, there's no answer as long as our business model is to compete for fee-for-departure flying.
