Economists talk about the 'mobility of labour' - workers will move to better jobs. With seniority we loose that. Once you reach a point where you can't afford to start again at the bottom, you are stuck where you are, even though each contract is another kick in the nuts, as the new contract is better than what else is on offer when starting at the bottom. CX has decided to use the wuhan virus to force us on to POS18 (a collection of conditions of service OK for someone with no airline experience), where as others I know at airlines which respect their staff have followed the contracts, made surplus staff redundant, reached agreements on reduced pay, but expect to return to previous conditions and reemploy when thing improve.
Due to wuhan there is currently no where better to go to. Due to seniority that will continue to be the case. So my plan is to keep current and watch the market. To avoid seniority I will move sideways to a contract airline job or corporate pilot.
Seniority is a bitch which keeps us down.