Disability rights

Janine addresses the protest in support of Osime Brown outside the Home Office on Friday 4 September - includes the poems Free Osime Brown and Bearing Down.

Please sign Osime's petition here.

Published in Solidarity 562:

Published in Solidarity 542, 7 April 2020.

Disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) are objecting to the lack of adequate healthcare, the loss of social care support, the erosion of rights – and the ominous attitude that disabled people are somehow less worthy of life.

Also on the RMT London Calling website here.

Disabled transport workers are a significant and valuable part of the workforce that delivers transport to millions of passengers and freight consignments every day. Many of us are also particularly vulnerable during the current Covid-19 pandemic.

Published in RMT News, October 2019

By Janine Booth, RMT Disabled Members’ Advisory Committee Chair

Janine proposing a motion condemning deaths of autistic and learning disabled people in care, at TUC Disabled Workers' Conference in May 2019.

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On 21 March this year, an inquest ruled that the death of Colette McCulloch was avoidable.

Colette was thirty-five years old when she died. She was autistic, and in a hostile society, she had become mentally unwell.

This is my proposing speech for TUC Disabled Workers’ Committee’s emergency motion calling for action to stop cuts to funding for kids with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. Several trade unions’ delegates spoke in support of the motion, which was passed unanimously.

Conference, I am going to tell you:

Published in Solidarity 468

Disabled transport workers discussed issues from workplace representation to the role of charities at their two-day RMT conference in Southend on 26-27 April.

1. TUC Disabled Workers' Conference, 24-25 May, Bournemouth

• Motions - The Committee agreed to to support all motions and amendments, except:
  • Unison's amendment to Unite's motion on Universal Credit (oppose) - the motion opposes UC; the amendment wants to change this to reforming it
  • POA's motion on mental health discrimination (oppose) - the Committee can not support the Time To Change campaign, as it is run by Mind, which collaborates with the DWP
  • Community's motion on sustainable supported employment (decision deferred) - the motion proposes promoting a particular company as 'best practice' for the employment of disabled people - we need more information before endorsing this