Ignition O., I'm with you. Did you miss the first part of my first sentence? But the "industry leading" mantra turned into a spiral, being repeated by the next pilot group as soon as the previous one had signed their deal. Heck, even the SW guys started bitching about their -relatively- crummy pay.
And as for "You might not believe that the ALPA regional JET pay for First Officers, is little above US minimum wage.": I do believe because I do know. Been there, done that.
water check: Just a few years back the situation was pretty much reversed and you could have used virtually the same points to argue that case then.