£18,500 for a firefighter! If that is what local management value them at, good luck to those UNISON members, after all, they are the one's that might just save your life should an accident occur. Would you want to do their job?
Folk seem to think that all firefighters do is sit on their backsides doing nothing? Wrong! You need a licence and therefore a medical standard. You have to maintain competency and peak performance and then you have to undergo regular horrid smoke training etc. £18,500 for that! You could earn more working at ASDA!
Firefighters an an integral part of safety that is aviation and should be rewarded accordingly!
I think that you will find that firefighters at other civil airports earn considerably more than this after training, and so they should!