Desperate but wage drop - Help, advice needed.

[fruitandbarley]

I am currently working in a job which I’ve been in for 5 years, I have made it clear for the last three that I was interested in training /moving roles into another job in a different department (which would have been promotion/more money), an opportunity never came up, but we have recently merged with another company, and now a trainee role for the job I want has come up.
The problem is, they’ve told me it would be a wage drop. I wasn’t expecting a payrise, but theres no way I can afford a drop.
Is there anything I can do? It seems crazy they’ve got someone that’s already been doing lots of the role, is keen and loyal and they’ve made it impossible for me.

How long would it be a wage drop for? Presumably if it is a trainee role then there is scope for future development and salary increases?

If you are already able to do lots of the role, could you try to negotiate to say that there would be less training and better efficiencies as you can do those parts of the role already?

How much would the drop be?

If it's a trainee role though, isn't it pretty normal for it to be at a lower salary due to the time & costs involved in training/mentoring and getting the person to a reasonable standard to do the work well.

What is the 'going rate' for the new trainee role?

There is a lot to be said for moving someone that you already know the standard/quality of work rather then recruiting an unknown person; but they would presumably need to replace you, which could be more costly & more difficult than recruiting for a trainee position.

I'm not clear from your post whether that is normal, but if I was to move roles to train in something else I can see that could reasonably invile a salary drop. Can you negotiate e.g. Extra hours on your old job / doing the training PT with your old job etc?

Thanks for your comments, it's actually more of an assistant role than trainee sorry didn't explain properly, but since posting there been some hope, I've spoken to HR and the head of department and they are getting back to me.