I reckon I earn about the same at the moment as I would have done had I stayed in academia (but less than when I worked in the private sector!).

I suppose I don't feel that there is any particular reason why academics in general should be paid more than I am. (I'm not convinced that people should only be paid by the number of years experience they have in a field I guess).

There are an awful lot of perks and nice things associated with being an academic - not least an incredible amount of freedom to choose what you work on. I decided not to go down the academic route much more because of the whole short-term contract issue than because of the pay. I wanted a bit more career security. I think there are a whole number of issues that the AUT should be campaigning about but overall pay (as opposed to pay for particular subsections of the academic population) isn't one of the most important ones.