Dieseldo - it was only when the engineering was contractorised that the maintenance staff were not well remunerated, before that they were all in the military and paid according to rank just like everyone else.
Somehow it seems acceptable for employers to take a military pension into account when calculating pay rates - this wouldn't happen anywhere else in the private sector, the pension has been earned in its own right and should not be used to pay below-market wages. Imagine if you were means-tested every time you applied for a job and there was a sliding scale of pay depending on how much you had earned previously - it is a disgrace!
Most of the rearcrew will now have to rely on their pension to keep themselves at their previous pay levels simply because a big company decided they could either like it or lump it and that SAR rearcrew couldn't possibly be worth anything like the frontcrew.
Jim - I don't think any of them are perfectly happy with the low pay on transition though they will have to accept it; I think it is a lack of respect for the role they play in SAR and I think it not only petty and small-minded but also divisive and potentially a safety issue as SAR stops being a vocation and becomes just another job.