The federal arm of the Greens is to step in to try to resolve the Victorian nurses pay dispute.

A new bill is to be introduced next week to widen the powers of Fair Work to arbitrate in matters involving essential services.

Greens MP Adam Bandt, a former industrial lawyer who is sponsoring the bill, hopes it will act as a circuit breaker to the dispute.

Nurses are threatening mass resignations over what they say is a Baillieu government plan to abolish nurse-patient ratios and introduce lesser-trained health assistants.

They will hold a stopwork meeting at Festival Hall today to determine the next move in their industrial campaign.