Originally Posted by The Nip
When I joined up in 80, TG1&2 were paid more. I had no problem with this as it was a personal choice.
Since then times have changed, drastically. Various trades have been judged(rightly or wrongly) to be worthy of a pay increase. There is no such thing as techie pay, but those individuals in TG1&2 have not had their pay reduced.
Why, IMHO, is it that Techies will only be happy when they get paid more than anyone else irrespective of their salary? The highest scoring Trade in the JSJET system was the dental hygienist. There are other TGs who also deserve more but that is purely subjective.
I'm telling it as it is on the shop floor... many TG1 have PVR'd because they will get paid better and put up with less s*** elsewhere. I know many who walked straight into jobs in Aberdeen and don't know of any TG1 who PVR'd and was worse off.
If the RAF matched the pay that these guys can easily get working offshore, then you would drastically reduce the PVR rate.
What nobody has mentioned yet, is the problem is worse than the manning numbers suggest. As theses numbers do not take into account experience, qualifications, operational readiness, effectiveness, etc. The numbers are just bums on seats and not "guys who know what they are doing" versus "kid straight out of school".