Nationwide's employees are sticking together actually, but many here are missing some of the undercurrents:
Yes, contract pilots could be happy to come and work for Nationwide. It still however, takes two to three months or so to train an F/O, and with Nationwide's 'last minute, reactive-style' planning, even that can be a problem. -500 F/O's are also working their butts off. But this isn't the big issue.
It's Captains, or the critical lack thereof. And they don't grow on trees. You can't just recruit a direct entry Captain from somewhere on contract. You see, Captains at Nwide come in two flavours: The retired skygod flavour, and the 'original' Nwide Captain variant, who moved up through the ranks. Now, both varieties can only tolerate so much BS, which Nwide is now dishing out in spades. The skygods won't put up with it, because they don't need to stomach this rubbish, and the 'originals' who have already had to swallow years of abuse and are now gatvol, can now move on because of the movement in the job market.
Neither group will do much in the way of serious complaining or union action - they'll simply vote with their feet, which is precisely what's happening. They'll just pack up and go.
The HR people can wring their hands and make useless gestures ('climate survey' - whatever! If you can't see what they problems are, you must be blind!) to try and get them to stay, but they'll have had enough by now. Serious, genuine, and IMMEDIATE effort would be required to persuade them to stay now. The puny salary gesture isn't nearly enough. They will still be paying at the absolute bottom end of the local industry. More will be leaving shortly. The 'old hands' at Nationwide have seen all these promises before anyway. They know management won't remove their heads from their sphincters. And therefore they are going, and will continue to do so without too much shouting. Why attempt to change the unchangeable when you can just leave?
And therefore, this isn't just a case of pilots not sticking together etc etc. It's a problem that's been long in the making caused by a management culture at Nationwide, and is now coming to the fore because of the possibilities for moving on in the local/overseas job market. The newer pilots at Nationwide have the opportunity to try and lever some changes in there. But they're going to need an APFSDS round to try and penetrate some of the thick skulls on high there.