View Full Version : So, living wage...
It has oft been touted in my years of service that we are paid for 24 hours of duty each and every day, usually suffixed with "so quit moaning about X parade/inspection/deployment". So taking that to be the case, and the national minimum wage now being raised to £7.20 an hour, doesn't that make minimum pay for military personnel £63,072 per annum..? About right for Flt Lt on enhanced rate RRP, but looking a bit shy for the lower ranks... Discuss
pr00ne
3rd Apr 2016, 13:41
Only applicable if you actually WORK 24 hours. Good luck with that.
Background Noise
3rd Apr 2016, 13:42
.... every day, including weekends, BHs and leave days.
Melchett01
3rd Apr 2016, 13:54
Work or on duty ... If we're going to be penickity there is a difference. And unless the formal position has changed, military personnel are assessed as being on duty 24/7 as the MOD and Treasury agreed back in 1977 when they were trying to decide on the tax status of travel warrants, HTD etc.
On the 5 July 1977, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Joel Barnett, wrote to the then Secretary of State for Defence, Fred Mulley, in which he set out an agreed position on the home to duty travel allowance for members of the armed forces. The relevant parts of this letter are:
“(At a meeting on 29 June 1977) I agreed that the Government should introduce legislation at the Report Stage of the Finance Bill to exempt both (travel warrants and home to duty travel allowance) from tax in the hands of members of the Services.
“..but the Revenue tell me that it would be possible for them to justify treating the allowance as not liable to tax under existing law… A serviceman is always on duty… his travel between home and barracks is between two places of duty rather than from home to duty, and the expenses of that travel are not taxable.
So are we paid for being on duty or for time spent sitting in the cockpit, on the Ops desk, in SHQ? If the former and we are still deemed as being on duty 24/7, and are therefore paid as such, then there probably are quite a few people not getting the living wage. Probably not that simple though, with no doubt numerous clauses, caveats and MOD policy decisions based on what fits at any given time.
Capt Scribble
3rd Apr 2016, 14:06
If you press that one, you might just end up sitting in the crew room/guard room on your days-off.
Dan Gerous
3rd Apr 2016, 14:13
Well we all got a pay rise to £7.20 an hour, and promptly had our shift bonus cut to make up for it. Thanks for quite literally nothing.
pr00ne
3rd Apr 2016, 14:34
Sorry,
No mil personnel are on call 24 hours a day 365 days a year. They operate a shift system like the rest of the world.
Selatar
3rd Apr 2016, 14:57
Nice try melchett. Let me know when LACs out of phase 2 get 63k and I will re apply...
My father recalls not very fondly the 5 1/2 day working week that was in place during his RAF national service says at Medmenham in the late 50s. End of the week was 1230 on Saturday. Op Deny Weekend writ large. Do you advocate a return?
Just This Once...
3rd Apr 2016, 15:03
Pr00ne, quite a few of are on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
And yes, we are called out rather frequently.
Melchett01
3rd Apr 2016, 15:08
I'm not advocating anything, merely making the point - as proven in many of the replies here - that it's an unwinable argument not worth starting as the MOD will happily flex its position on working hours and pay as and when it chooses in order to fit the prevailing circumstances.
Although to say no mil personnel are ever on shift/duty/call, call it what you will, 24/7 is an incorrect generalisation. In my current unit we have a 24/7/365 liability and I and my team rotate through being on week long 24/7 duties (ops not Station) at a rate of 1 week in 6 at the moment; and yes we do get called and I doubt we are the only ones with such a liability.
Selatar
3rd Apr 2016, 15:19
Just this once. Out of curiosity what part of the " at home" RAF are " on call 24/7 and called out regularly". Do you stay sober 365 and within 1 hour of work all year? I'm glad I never worked in your squadron.....
Seriously though. You all work damn hard and in a perfect world would be paid more.
glad rag
3rd Apr 2016, 15:28
The only time you can't be recalled is when you are on leave, and even then your only moved down the list.
ACW342
3rd Apr 2016, 16:00
A Bit better than my £98 a month + families income supplement + Rent Rebate + a chit from the boss to allow me to take my nightshift rations home + free school meals for the kids.... happy days?
Tankertrashnav
3rd Apr 2016, 16:25
What makes me laugh is the idea of calling this a living wage. I have no mortgage, no kids to support and few outgoings and I would still find living on £7.20 an hour really tough. Thankfully my pensions (service, state and others which I paid into) give me a reasonable income, but life is undoubtedly much tougher for the generations coming up.
Willard Whyte
3rd Apr 2016, 16:26
The only time you can't be recalled is when you are on leave, and even then your only moved down the list.
I always remember having to give contact details whenever I went on leave, back in the 90s anyway - never bothered in the noughties. One wondered exactly how they expected me to get back from some far flung motel in the middle of 'nowhere' in the NW USA in a hurry if it all 'kicked off'.
Pretty sure my wife's father & step father were recalled back in the mid 60s (V-Bomber crew), but that was at a time when not so many people travelled to far flung destinations.
Hangarshuffle
3rd Apr 2016, 18:27
Perhaps a more part time service is required? I've mooted this before and got roundly blasted for it, but I think for a lot of people service life would be a lot more enjoyable if they actually spent less away doing say, a utterly repetitive patrol getting a standard wage, as against volunteering for periods away and then being paid very well for when they are away.
6 months RN work say down the wherever= good wage/then rest of the 6 months you are non operational and you get a very much reduced retainer (with the opportunity to work as a civvy doing whatever you can or want to)..
See that as a future for the RN at least, if I'm honest I cant see an alternative. No one seems to want to stay in... especially technical trades as the money is so much better outside.
I think people would sign up for it.
Haraka
3rd Apr 2016, 18:49
I went from the Service into industry, initially and innocently, in the early 80's.
It was later pointed out to me by my Director, that because I was overseas 40% of the year for long continuous periods ("24/7" in modern parlance) , that based upon hourly rates I was one of the lowest paid employees in the company.
However.............
Pontius Navigator
3rd Apr 2016, 19:09
V-Force indeed, call out address book kept up to date daily. If planning to be away from notified address more than 16 hours, ring Ops with address.
One operation, various members of crew recalled from Farnborough (2), a Norwich shopping precinct and Old Trafford, and all airborne within 24 hours and planned for 3 months; but there's a war on.
NutLoose
3rd Apr 2016, 21:38
24 hours lol, even Fred Mulley mentioned above couldn't stay awake that long.
Tankertrashnav
3rd Apr 2016, 22:05
On duty 24 hours? Indeed - when I was sitting beside a pool in Las Vegas on rate ones I clearly remember remarking to the rest of the crew "Do you realise we are getting paid for this?"
Made up for the stupid o'clock takeoffs when they sprang a taceval on us, or a Dragonfly was called.
Hangarshuffle - that's how the navy used to work in Nelson's time. if you werent required (ie we didnt happen to be fighting the French for a while) they sent the officers home on half pay to await a recall as and when.
PersonFromPorlock
3rd Apr 2016, 22:31
Strategic Air Command would occasionally measure the work week of air crews, find out that between training activities and alert duty it was around 85 hours a week, and decide it didn't want to know after all.
And if you don't think a seven-day alert tour was 24/7 duty, you've never cocked a replacement aircraft on alert at 0100 hours in a snowstorm so that the old alert bird could make a scheduled training sortie.
Pozidrive
3rd Apr 2016, 23:32
24 hours lol, even Fred Mulley mentioned above couldn't stay awake that long.
Ah yes.
Isn't there a famous press photo of Fred fast asleep, next to HM the Q ?
NutLoose
4th Apr 2016, 02:03
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/11/30/2398835900000578-0-image-37_1417308571750.jpg
PlasticCabDriver
4th Apr 2016, 04:33
Best I hand myself in to the RAFP then, as I spent a good portion of those 150,000-odd hours absolutely sh*tfaced.
Wander00
4th Apr 2016, 11:50
Who is that 2 to the right of NC - not Aunty Joan is it?
Top Bunk Tester
5th Apr 2016, 03:54
I was recalled from Xmas leave in 1977 for Op BURBERRY (Fireman's strike) I hasten to this was far from my only Op DENY CHRISTMAS, just the first ☹️
On one occasion - Endex - all repair to bar.
Some little time later enter Boss - "Stop drinking! We've been tasked one more sortie!"
"How much have you had to drink?"
"How much have you had to drink?"
"How much have you had to drink?"
etc. etc.
Exit Boss with miffed but mellow crew :ok:
Tankertrashnav
5th Apr 2016, 15:22
Who is that 2 to the right of NC - not Aunty Joan is it?
Hat indicates air officer so I'm assuming she is Director, WRAF, who at the time was Air Commodore Joy Tamblin. I never knew the lady - was she known as Aunty Joan (Aunty Joy, surely?)
Wander00
5th Apr 2016, 17:29
Heck that long ago. Aunty Joan was Air Cdre Joan Hopkins. She, allegedly, refused the DWRAF appointment. Joy Tamblin's predecessor, Molly Allott, was a member of "my" Yacht Club. The great (IMHO) Neil Cameron was Assistant Commandant of the Towers during my time as a cadet.
The last DWRAF, Air Commodore Ruth Montague, 1989–1994, was the wife of Monty, one of the instructors at British Airways Flight Training Centre, Cranebank.
A lot of people know that ;)
Wait! Wasn't this about the Living Wage?
Yes, let me help:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VKHFZBUTA4k