Heliduck, you have a point, but if we were paid on responsibility, engineers would be paid the most, as they have the lives of the passengers AND the pilots in their dirty little underpaid and underappreciated hands (and they spend years longer training than the two guys up front), yet they don't even figure in anyones calculations as they are considered a cost that a company must bear.
If I wanted lots of money, I'd work in the dirt and mud as a drill hand on a rig. If I wanted to do the job I wanted and earn an Ok wage, I'd stick with the job I have.
Manual labour jobs historically are paid more than a lot of other jobs (road working crews for instance). If you want the money, I'm sure there are road working crews, or oil rig cleaningmaintenance companies looking for employees. Long term the prospects probably aren't that great, as opposed to our industry where the long term prospects are probably better.