THE arguments continue as to how much the firefighters "deserve" to be paid.

It is interesting that the industry with the highest rate of fatal injury is the recycling of waste and scrap, where the risk of death is 30 times the average. Not as glamourous as "firefighting", but few would argue that it is any less essential. Yet there is a curious absence of letters arguing for improved remuneration for these people.

Nor is there a general outcry concerning the poor wages paid to staff caring for elderly people in care homes, despite the complex human skills needed to carry out this important work. The truth is that employers try to pay just enough to ensure adequate recruitment and retention, and employees try to obtain what they can get away with.

Hence the current demand for a 40 per cent increase; the firefighters think they will succeed. On the face of it, with up to 200 applications for each vacancy, it does not seem to be a strong case. In my view, it would be difficult to find more "deserving" candidates for a large pay increase than our nurses, since vacancies are currently being filled by stripping third world countries of trained staff. If nurses ever went on strike, we would be in desperate straits within hours, and it is to their enduring credit that they never have.

Surely these matters should be settled in a business-like manner, not on the basis of who shouts loudest, or who can cultivate the most virtuous image in the media.

John Morris

Coniston Road

Blackrod, Bolton