AS one of the college staff members who enjoyed a protest picnic' in support of our national campaign for an inflation-proof wage increase, I thought your article (Blackburn College lecturers' protest picnic over pay) was well informed and accurate in most respects.

However, readers should be clear that our campaign against below-inflation wage offers is not limited to lecturers.

All six Further Education unions have submitted a joint claim for six per cent - partly to make up for a below-inflation award last year.

A settlement that takes account of the real rate of inflation is especially important for college support staff, administrators and others who do extremely valuable work for low wages. They cannot afford to set a precedent of accepting effective wage cuts in a period of galloping inflation.

In Blackburn we have an excellent college with an excellent workforce, but we need all our Lancashire colleges to be staffed by well motivated and well rewarded workers.

We need to provide quality jobs which will benefit East Lancashire and allow talented young people to develop long-term careers here.

All the college unions: UCU, UNISON, ATL, GMB and UNITE are clear - nobody doing increasingly stressful jobs should be expected to accept an erosion of their living standards, while oil magnates, bank and utility corporations and billionaire speculators continue to rake in obscene profits.

JOHN MURPHY (vice-chair, Blackburn College branch, University and College Union), 15b Preston New Road, Blackburn .