I've been following the discussions on pay scales for different trades on this and another forum. The thrust being that aircraft techie's are more important/skilled than other trades so should be paid more. Prior to the introduction of the 1964 trade structure there were two streams within the ranks, the command stream and the technical stream. Each stream had its own pay rates so a Cpl/Sgt/F.Sgt (who wore there stripes the right way up) in the command stream received less pay than a Cpl Tech/Senior Tech/Chief Tech in the technical stream (who wore there stripes upside down) additionally, married men were paid more than single men. The 1970 pay deal was supposed to bring other ranks in line with the going rate in civie street. Three pay bands (1/2/3) were introduced for Cpl and below and each trade & rank was evaluated and placed in one of these bands. At the time this caused huge resentment from those in the lower bands and whilst they received some sympathy from their officers and SNCOs they were generally told to stop winging and get on with it. A couple of years later (72/73 I think) SNCOs and WO's were included in the pay banding and a whole new level of winging was achieved. Officers were never pay banded and many saw this as the main reason why nothing was ever done to get the anomalies (a Sgt in the low band received less than a Cpl in the highest band) and perceived injustices of the banding system sorted out. The aspiration that pay would stay in line with civilian equivalents seemed to work until 76/77 ish when the services were awarded a series of what became known as "Irishman rises" (pay rise 50p a week, rent up 75p). Pensions were at a set rate for each rank irrespective of pay band.. This was explained away as the "band of brothers concept" (apparently ok for pensions but not for pay). Now I never subscribed to this system and the argument put about by the aircraft techies that the consequence of them making an error could be the loss of a aircraft so they should be paid more cut little ice with me. I would counter that the actions of a rogue cook could end in the loss of a station (remember tacevals and hot-locks) if he put his mind to it. I also couldn't understand why, if a cook was worth less than a techie why wasn't an engineering officer worth more than a catering officer. Just my thoughts and no I wasn't a cook.
