Books etc

Janine's sonnet, Another Country, is included in the anthology Poetry and Settled Status for All, published by Civic Leicester.

It is reviewed in Cambridge University's Varsity.

… and why it matters today

By Janine Booth, published in RMT News.

The two biggest employers in the east London borough of Poplar one hundred years were the railways and the docks. Our forerunner unions had plenty of members there. Their jobs involved long hours and low pay, but they were unionised, so they were fighting for, and winning, improvements.

A recently-unearthed article by eighteen-year-old Janine, from Jamming! issue 26 (February 1985), back in the days when fox hunting was still legal.

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Fox-hunting is part of a die-hard British tradition. As the art of sabotage becomes more cunning, the hunt means confrontation. Janine Booth travels to Aylesbury to assess the rights and wrongs.

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Published in Solidarity 610, 20 October 2021.

The Night Tube in London will resume on two lines from 27 November, in a move promoted as ensuring safety for women. However, the reality is more complex, and women’s safety requires increased Night Tube staffing.

Published in Women's Fightback 26, Autumn/Winter 2021

Assignment written for the Postgraduate Certificate in Autism and Asperger Syndrome, Sheffield Hallam University.

WHY DOES WORK NOT WORK FOR US?

• How and why is employment hostile to autistic people?
• How useful are the main autism theories in explaining this?

Today (1 September 2021) is the centenary of the first arrests of Poplar's rebel councillors.

More about this auspicious occasion and its relevance today in my article on Labour Hub.

Published in Women's Fightback 26, Autumn/Winter 2021

Kelly Lindsey, former head coach of the Afghanistan women’s football team – and before that, US international player – spoke to supporters before Lewes FC women’s home friendly against West Ham on 22 August. She has been working to secure safe evacuation of footballing women and girls from Afghanistan, along with the director of women’s football, a human rights lawyer and FIFPRO (the international professional footballers’ federation, their trade union body). “For seven days straight we’ve created a team in the US, a team in Australia, a team in Europe, we have passed the baton all day and all night to try to keep the process going and try to keep the pressure on and try to keep pushing the government and try to keep pushing sports organisations.“

Published in RMT News, July/August 2021

RMT members have helped to win justice for Osime Brown, a young, black, autistic, learning-disabled man. The union saw this as an issue that deserved our support and solidarity. Janine Booth, Secretary of RMT’s Disabled Members’ Advisory Committee, explains why.

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This is the obituary of Dinah that I wrote for Solidarity 

Workers’ Liberty is saddened to learn of the death of Dr Dinah Murray.

Dinah spoke alongside me at two of our Ideas for Freedom summer schools and at an online forum last year, on the subject of neurodiversity, autism, capitalism and Marxism. Each time she provided valuable insights and increased the level of understanding among the comrades who listened.