If we want to promote ourselves as a professional group then I suggest the time has come where we as a Society start working together to ensure we are one voice and belong to one strong union.

Otherwise we are never going to be taken seriously by those who control the purse strings in the health sector and who make the decisions. I know many of you currently belong to either the Nurses Association, Public Service Sector or Food and Services Workers Union, we need to get all members under one umbrella, we currently have 400+ members and together we can make a difference.

Sheree McIntyre
President

We should all work in the Supermarket. The paper has said 16 year olds with no experience will be paid nearly $14 per hour!!!!!

After studying for three years Kindy teachers are paid between $18 and $24 per hour.

As DT’s we are seriously under paid.

The government is set to make minimum adult rate $12 from March 2008. CTU is trying to raise this to $15. This will mean many DT’s will soon find them selves floating just above the minimum wage rate with many years of experience and/or qualified. Employers need to arrange immediate pay increases and regular increase before the gap is too big to compensate. In effect many of us will be going backwards rather than forward when minimum adult rates and inflation are considered.

I agree, I'm shocked to hear how badly paid some DT jobs are in NZ.

But come on, If DT's in NZ are happy to accept jobs with such a low salary then it will be very hard to make employers pay more! We simply must demand more pay!

I'm emigrating to NZ this year and have already had several job offers all excceeding $18 hr! And I'm still looking to find a better paid job than that. I'd never accept anything like $12 hr!

It's a highly skilled job that takes a certain kind of person to do it well. With the rapidly rising ageing population and the ever increasingly recognised need for GOOD care we are in a position to push our profession UP in the salary bracket.

As I said, it's not rocket science, people please don't accept the badly paid offers of work and very quickly we will all see the profession being more apprecciated and therefore better paid!