Out of interest,the only airworthiness authority representative monitoring hands on maintenance in the UK I've ever seen was from the FAA. They are here every year monitoring maintenance of US registered aircraft. Strangely, not seen the CAA near an aircraft in 17 years.
All of this is becoming academic because it's never going to change (in the UK anyway) because here maintenance, in my experience anyway, is run by negative, narrow minded and vindictive people.
If you want to be treated better, best thing is maybe to look at moving within the industry, but not so far you have trouble renewing your licences as that would be a waste of your past efforts. By the way, I did a BSc Honours degree and it was no harder than my multi-X licence exams.
I personally don't know anyone under 30 years of age in this industry (in the UK), so when we retire it's probably pretty much over anyway.
edited for spelling because my fingers are dyslexic.