Trainee organisers begin work with NZNO.

TWO TRAINEE organisers are among four recent staff appointments at NZNO. The organisers, Irene Rudolph, who will work in Wellington, and Huia Welton, who will work in Dunedin, have been employed under the Council of Trade Unions' (CTU) trainee organiser scheme.

Announcing their appointments, organising services manager Laila Harre said Rudolph would be mentored by Laura Thomas and Welton by Cee Payne-Harker. Rudolph, a Capital and Coast Distrct Health Board delegate, was on the negotiating team for the lower North Island Multi-employer Collective Agreement. Welton is a former president of Massey University Student Association and active in the women's refuge movement. "They will work for nine months with a mentor on NZNO's organising projects and will also receive off-site training through the CTU prgramme," Harre said. The scheme would have two-way benefits. "NZNO gets two extra pairs of hands in a year where we have huge challenges in the organising area and the trainees will bring fresh ideas and will mix with trainees from other unions and be part of an important cross fertilisation process."

Mike Yeats (pictured), a former researcher, tutor and manager at Otago Polytechnic's occupational therapy school, began as an organiser in the Dunedin office last month. He was attracted to organising as, after years of research, he became frustrated at being unable to do anything about the issues he had researched. "I know in this field I will be able to do some things about those issues, as opposed to writing about the theory of it. I will be more active, more political in this role."

Yeats said he had worked in health for a long time and at polytechnic had often worked with nurses and midwives.

Harre said he brought a strong awareness of the issues facing mainly women professions in the health sector.

A child health co-ordinator and practice nurse development officer with First Health Primary Health Organisation in Hamilton, Angela Dawbin, begins as a professional nursing adviser in Auckland late this month. An assessor in negotiations for the national practice nurses' collective agreement, she has also been very active in the College of Practice Nurses NZNO. She said she was very excited about her new role, which will mean a shift to Auckland. She replaces Taylor Carter.