I think what Worldcynic says is true of many operators. There are many companies out there that think pilots are just a drain on their profit-making. I'd like to know where the companies who think like this would be if they got their office staff to fly their planes.
I used to work for a company that used to give increases and bonuses to its office/passenger relations staff, but not its pilots, because 'the pilots already recieve a salary on par with industry norms' (bulls£it). The commercial manager once said in a meeting about raises he would employ pilots for no salary at all if he could. Sadly there's not much out there in terms of decent jobs at the moment, so pilots don't have much choice but to stay...