TODAY this city is gripped by a pay dispute that probably impacts on more families than any that has ever come before.
Birmingham City Council's radical review of salaries will inflate the wage packets of some of its staff and mean losses for others.
With around 40,000 people employed by the authority, these plans inevitably effect a gigantic number of people.
The importance of this row cannot be exaggerated. Nor the impact that industrial action would have on many crucial services.
Which is why we have thrown open pages 14 and 15 to provide a platform for the two sides – the council and the unions – to put their arguments.
Council personnel chief Alan Rudge and Unison official Caroline Johnson hotly contest the rights and wrongs of this blueprint.
As usual in matters of this kind, this is a complex issue containing many shades of grey rather than simple tones of black and white.
The arguments over the number of winners and losers – and the scale of their winnings and losses – are hotly contested by the two sides.
But one thing at least is clear: Birmingham City Council is compelled by law to address pay inequalities.
The question is.....how?
It is hard not to sympathise with those employees who stand to lose many thousands of pounds a year because of these proposals. Their weekly bills will not diminish and many will struggle to make ends meet.
Equally, the council has a duty spend the public's money wisely. It cannot simply hand out huge pay rises to iron out inequalities.
Neither side, though, should become so entrenched in its position that it refuses to acknowledge merit in contrary arguments.
Even at this late stage, compromises may be found.
For the good of Birmingham, let us hope that can happen.