You are right. If there was a plausable argument on the grounds of safety then the governing bodies would get involved, but there simply isn't and it would be wrong to try and use the "safety" card as a lever to get things changed.
We shouldnt have to justify it on a legal or safety level, it should just be about pure morals and principles. Professional jobs attract higher incomes because of the time and investment it takes to get trained and the fact that a person can't just be replaced instantly like an unskilled worker can. We should'nt be ashamed of earning, or aspiring to earn the kind of salary's that previously existed for the job. The public may well see us as overpaid moaning busdrivers (Im not certain that's strictly true) because airline safety and a/c reliability is so good these days so the opprotunities for pilots to have to prove their skills and knowledge, in terms of an incident, are thankfully rare. That doesn't mean that the required level of training or ability has got any less though. When everything is going well it's a very easy job but it really comes down to the old saying "you get paid for what you know, not what you do".