It must be difficult for those pilots to come to work every day without feeling guilty.
What would you have them do, exactly? They've been in the company 12+ years and cannot achieve further promotion, for no other reason than the direction that senior management has decided to take the company. Having found themselves as SOs or FOs on the 12-year pay rate, are they supposed to just resign from the profession and start a gardening business ? They probably feel all sorts of things, but guilty wouldn't be one of them.
I'm sorry if I'm somehow missing the point of your comment, but it's one of the oddest things I've read on this forum. (And that's up against some pretty stiff competition.)