A lot of teacher’s aids are very competent and a lot of teachers are not.

Before everyone starts putting on the rose coloured glasses and thinking that Labor wouldn't do such a thing.

I seem to remember a certain Bob Hawke bringing in overseas pilots and even using the R.A.A.F. to smash the pilot's dispute years ago.

The working person will always be the one to may for the mistakes of any Party in Power. Thus it has been since time immemorial.

I used to work in the Hospitals (Pub/Priv).
It ain't like the 'rosy' coloured days of Florence Nightingale (Red Baron).

...I've seen many a payslip of up to $100 per hour.

No. They try to make you take your medication.

More nurses to strike
John Elder
February 26, 2012





NURSES have warned that any attempt by the state government to fine them over strike action will ''only strengthen their resolve''.   

Tomorrow, nurses will add three more hospitals - Maroondah, Ballarat and St Vincent's - to their roster of four-hour stoppages, taking to nine the hospitals affected.

Lisa Fitzpatrick, secretary of the Victorian branch of the Australian Nurses Federation, said nurses at every hospital in the state would be on strike by early next month if the Baillieu government refused to negotiate on nurse-patient ratios.   


As more than 2000 nurses walked off the job at Royal Melbourne, Dandenong, Western, Frankston, Geelong and Northern hospitals yesterday, Ms Fitzpatrick said she expected the government's lawyers to be applying to the Federal Court for orders to allow individual fines of up to $6000.

She said the union would continue to add three hospitals a day to its strike campaign until Premier Ted Baillieu agreed to go to Fair Work Australia to resolve the dispute. FWA has ruled the strike action illegal.

Hospitals scale back staff on weekends but with the strike affecting more hospitals, the scale of the action is set to grow dramatically this week.   

Ms Fitzpatrick said nurses were still keeping staff at safe levels and that midwives at Frankston with in-labour patients did not walk out.

A government spokesman denied going to the Federal Court yesterday, but said court action had not been ruled out. That option remained open if the ANF continued to defy FWA.


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/more-nurses-to-strike-20120225-1tvev.html#ixzz1nQkg6BFw

Ja Signature....I have just looked up the pay scales for Nurses in the Victorian system.

Year 1 weekly rate $851.30 to year 10 $1127.00 per week.

The Highest Grade Registered Nurse Grade 4B $1368.60 per week.

Weekend penalties can attract anything from $42 to $67 per shift. Depending on pay scale.

I see no evidence of rates at $100 per hour anywhere.

Bid to stop walkouts by nurses
Kate Hagan
February 28, 2012





VICTORIAN hospitals today will seek an urgent order in the Federal Court for nurses to stop industrial action.

The move comes after more than 1000 nurses walked out of 12 hospitals yesterday in a bid to pressure the Baillieu government to agree to a process to settle their long-running dispute over pay and conditions.

Nurses today enter their fifth day of action to reduce staffing to night-shift levels for up to four hours on morning and afternoon shifts, which the government says has led to 76 operations being cancelled.


Health Minister David Davis described the impact on patients whose surgery was cancelled as cruel.

The action began at three hospitals on Friday, and the Australian Nursing Federation has warned it will extend to three more hospitals each day until the government agrees to have an independent umpire decide all unresolved issues in their dispute, including nurse-patient ratios.   

Victorian Hospitals Industrial Association chief executive Alec Djoneff said he would respond to the independent umpire proposal today.

Nurses at The Alfred, Sunshine and Latrobe Regional hospitals will today join the walkouts, which have gone ahead despite an order by Fair Work Australia on Friday for them to stop.

Nurses would risk individual fines of up to $6600 and up to $33,000 for the union if they breached a Federal Court order.   

Mr Davis said 14 of the operations cancelled on Friday and yesterday had been for the most urgent category of patients, including for cancer patients.

''We will not let the ANF hold patients to ransom,'' he said.

''[The action is] clearly targeted to have the maximum cruel impact on individual patients. It is not a matter for union officials to be deciding who gets their surgery and who doesn't.''

The minister's comments came after Western Health director of surgical services Trevor Jones expressed concern about the cancellation of surgery for three cancer patients yesterday morning.

''I am upset … it's just not on,'' Associate Professor Jones told Fairfax Radio.

''I sympathise with the nurses, don't get me wrong. There must be easier ways of solving the problem than this, and in fact they're taking it out on the patients.

''I'm sorry, you can't dress it up any other way.''

Australian Nurses Federation state secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick said one of the Western Hospital patients ended up having surgery later in the day, and the other two patients were due to have their operations tomorrow. She said 9500 fewer patients would receive surgery this year compared with 2011-12 because of government cuts.   

''There is a much bigger picture here that he [Mr Davis] should be concerned about as the Health Minister,'' she said.

''We've been negotiating trying to get an agreement for eight months … the ceasing of the action only depends on him agreeing to go to an independent umpire.''   

Nurses, who are seeking an 18.5 per cent pay rise over three years and eight months, retain their current conditions until a new deal is struck.

The government is offering a 2.5 per cent annual rise, with any further increases to be offset by productivity measures, which include flexibility on ratios and the introduction of lesser-paid health assistants.


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/bid-to-stop-walkouts-by-nurses-20120227-1tyzj.html#ixzz1nc4BrUo0