UPDATE: VICTORIAN nurses have voted to take further industrial action.
The nurses will take unprotected industrial action as talks with the State Government remain deadlocked.
More than 3000 nurses voted yes to the industrial action at a stopwork meeting in Festival Hall this afternoon.
The four-hour stoppages will begin on Friday.
The federal Employment Minister Bill Shorten was speaking to a rally of nurses at Festival Hall this afternoon.
Mr Shorten told the Herald Sun in an exclusive interview outside the meeting the dispute had gone on too long.
"It's not helpful for me to start bagging parties, but I think this dispute should have been resolved by sitting down and talking to the nurses," he said.
Mr Shorten declined to comment on reports that Prime Minister Julia Gillard would spill the leadership vote next Tuesday and sack Kevin Rudd.
Nurses from across Victoria were bussed into Melbourne for the progress report on their drawn-out industrial action for better wages and conditions.
The unprotected action is the latest development in the bitter dispute between the Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) and the State Government.
It included a threat by the nurses to resign en masse.
That threat prompted Victorian Health Minister David Davis to urge the union to "come clean" on the consequences its members could face for taking such a drastic step.
"The ANF has shown blatant disregard for the welfare of its members," Mr Davis said.
"I don't believe nurses can trust the ANF union to work in their best interests."
He said resigning could see nurses lose entitlements, and they should seek independent advice before making such a decision.
There was also no obligation to reinstate nurses after making such a move, he said.
Nurses have also been warned by the body representing Victorian hospitals that any of them who quit to advance the union campaign had "no automatic right to be re-engaged''.
Victorian Hospitals Industrial Association (VHIA) chief executive Alec Djoneff said the ANF was running a scare campaign by asking nurses to put their jobs on the line.
Meanwhile, the Victorian nurses were heartened by support from about 20 Indian nurses who staged a rally outside the New Delhi hotel of visiting Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu, who is on a six-day trade mission to India.
Mr Davis said he was not surprised to see the nurses take their campaign internationally, but they were entitled to do so "as we live in a democracy''.
Meanwhile, the Victorian nurses were heartened by support from about 20 Indian nurses who staged a rally outside the New Delhi hotel of visiting Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu, who is on a six-day trade mission to India.
Mr Davis said he was not surprised to see the nurses take their campaign internationally, but they were entitled to do so "as we live in a democracy''.
Read more at the Herald Sun.
