Im hearing ya with the pay, however I have found it a lot easyer to negotiate a decent wage now a lot of tradies have gone out to the mines.
It's an all to common story these days with guys leaving the trade because after 10 years+ experience they still get offered $24/hr to work on cars, I know of one fella who is head tech at a Toyota dealership, 15 years exp and $26/hr with no overtime and a very unrealistic bonus system, what a joke..........