Issues and campaigns: Trade unions

Workers’ self-defence starts with getting unionised at work. This section includes material on the trade union struggles and issues I am involved in and/or urge you to support!

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  • RMT
    • The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (UK). I have been a member since 1997, and served on the union's national executive 2011-13.
  • RMT Disabled Members
    • Janine was the founding Chair, and later Secretary, of transport trade union RMT's Disabled Members' Advisory Committee.
  • TUC Disabled Workers Committee
    • Janine was elected to this Committee in 2013 and each year since (except 2020-21), before leaving it in 2023.

Share of the Pie

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Long long time ago, I can still remember How winter snow would make me smile And I knew when I had my chance We’d come inside to warm and dance And maybe we’d be happy for a while But February … Read more

End of the Line

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Walk down locked and empty streets alone, arrive for start of shift, it’s bear-the-brunt time to serve some others’ families not your own Going from the home front to the frontline Frozen pay, now tiny, ice-cold ‘offers’, red-bordered bills alert … Read more

Price Rises

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We’ve put our products’ prices up, that’s what we chose to do The power firms are doing it, so we can do it too We’re going to charge a fair chunk more to everyone who buys If they won’t pay … Read more

Useful Tips in a Cost-of-Living Crisis

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Heat less, eat less, fry less, buy less, waste less, taste less, nosh less, wash less, bath less, laugh less, phone less, own less, chance less, dance less, rave less, save less, drink less, think less, smoke less, be broke … Read more

Summertime

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after Gershwin’s song from Porgy and Bess — Summertime and the cost of livin’ ain’t easy Bills are jumpin’ and prices are high Oh, the bosses are rich and the workers are strugglin’ But hush, little baby don’t you cry … Read more

Clerihew: Andrew Haines

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Andrew Haines carefully explains That his £593,000 pay is not a perk – He really is worth twenty of the people who do the actual work — *Chief Executive Officer of Network Rail

Clerihew: Jeremy Westlake

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Jeremy Westlake has the second best take He’s in charge of the cash and makes sure he gets a big stash

Why You Don’t Deserve a Pay Rise

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A poem about this   Nicky from Network Rail says that to get work and not fail to make yourself a mint, not be skint – come on, take the hint – You should have worked harder at school, mastered … Read more