SPINNING AGAINST THE TIDE - THE 1987 INQUIRY INTO NURSING IN VICTORIA

This article draws on research into the 1987 inquiry into nursing in V ictoria, which was commissioned to appease nursing unrest over unresol ved issues in the tire settlement of the historic 1986 nurses' strike. It explores questions surrounding the perceived dichotomy between pro fessional and industrial issues in nursing. The report from the inquir y became an instrumental policy document that was operationalised by a formal implementation process. The process attempted to use strategie s of professionalism rather than unionism, to appear nursing unrest an d to advance nursing reforms. The involvement of the Victorian Branch of the Australian Nurses Federation (ANF) was central to the processes .(1) During this period, the distinction between the industrial and pr ofessional parameters of many nursing issues were shown to be blurred, despite attempts to separate them in the report. Future strategies fo r the development of nursing should acknowledge the limitations of pro fessionalisation, found by this study to be to be divisive among nurse s, reinforcing the power differential between administrative and clini cal nurses.