The Birmingham bin strike as it’s been called, is a stark reminder to all of what a blunt instrument equal pay legislation is.

This piece taken from the weekend edition of the I newspaper shows how confusing equal pay issues are. How can the parties embroiled in it have such differing views on what sorting this out will mean for the individuals involved? They can’t even agree on the numbers of people – and this is about people people not bags of rubbish, impacted – how is that possible?

My own experience of the farce and inequity of equal pay legislation was as a member of the Royal Air Force.

Thinking back, this was probably the beginnings of the slippery slope of the ultra woke policy making that now grips all levels of the MOD.

Equal pay legislation led the RAF to carry out a job evaluation of every trade group in the RAF. As an aircraft technician airframes, I was in trade group one. From memory (it was a long time ago now) the other aircraft trades were trade groups 2 and 3. There used to be four RAF Schools of Technical Training. I think no 4 was for the ground radio trade.

I digress, the logic for the aircraft trades being 1, 2 and 3 seemed to be that aircraft are the reason the RAF exists and the trades that keep them flying are the key ground trades. All the other trades are then classed as ancillary, or supporting to that purpose.

However, along comes job evaluation and this looks at things in a different and in my view, totally nonsensical way.

Once the dust had settled and the new pay scales were published, a trade group 1,2 or 3 chief technician – I was the rank of chief tech at the time, was now to be paid exactly the same as a chief tech playing an instrument in the Royal Air Force Band. WTF! Don’t get me wrong, my wife was a very talented and active musician at the time and I attended many of her concerts. I had nothing against musicians.

So we now had a completely ludicrous situation. A chief technician with responsibility for a team of technicians and mechanics maintaining a multi-million pound aircraft that could ultimately be carrying a nuclear weapon, or hundreds of passengers, is going to paid exactly the same rate of pay as somebody playing a flute!

That chief technician in charge of that team – in this case me, is going to be signing hundreds if not thousands of legal documents throughout the maintenance of the aircraft. The final document will be one that states that it is fit to fly. If it isn’t, it could potentially kill the crew testing it and anybody on the ground where it crashes.

When was the last time somebody died because a musician played a bum note? Equal pay and job evaluation has got a lot to answer for.

Don’t give in Birmingham bin men, right is on your side.