I make a damn good button pusher. TOTAL PUN INTENDED THERE! HAHAHAHAH
“skilled trade” is an opinion anyways, you will never win this one. My definition of skilled trade is an action someone can complete, that a total outsider cant just come in and take over. So I agree with you with your example
The ONLY way I could see someone making more money for their “trade” vs someone else next to them doing something far more taxing, would be from senority’s sake. If someone can sit there for 2080 hours a year doing pretty much nothing but press a big red button and make a call, for a bunch of years, they are nuts but still diserve incremental pay increases like anyone else.
But yeah, a dude getting paid $45K a year (even if he is on year 3 of button pushing) VS a dude getting paid $35K a year say writing the code to run the machine isnt “right” in my mind either.