Laura Broxson – Unite for a Real Alternative

***“… we got the children’s playground fixed, trees planted, fencing fixed, walls repainted …”***

Laura Broxson: Do you have a management company where you live, and do you know what they do? Being stuck at home during the lockdowns gave me a huge insight as to what was going on in my estate, and more so, what our management company was not doing.

Within days of the first lockdown, I witnessed drug dealing, anti-social behaviour and a number of cars were broken in to – as well as the front door of my apartment block. Clearly the only way to eliminate all this is for a shift in society and for more resources and educational opportunities to be put in communities, but in the meantime myself and others were living in fear and needed to take action in terms of preventative measures.

“With life and work, it was easy to allow oneself be fobbed off”

Now, all the above mentioned activity obviously isn’t the fault of the management company, but myself and others had been requesting CCTV for years to at least help put people off – and we had been constantly ignored and fobbed off. With life and work, it was easy to allow oneself be fobbed off, but lockdown meant I now had the time to focus on this.

The case for including animal rights in ‘left’ campaigns

Laura Broxson: Animal rights, often last on the list of social justice campaigns, is actually where I began my journey as a ‘left’ activist, over eighteen years ago. With almost 120 million – yes, million – animals killed in slaughterhouses in Ireland in 2020, according to figures obtained from the Department of Agriculture following an FOI request, isn’t it time we included a fight against speciesism in our campaigns?

The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted how catastrophic zoonotic diseases can be for the human population, and has made a lot of individuals re-evaluate their choices in terms of what they consume. Climate change has also resulted in a reflection in this regard. But let’s take away pandemics and climate change, and look at this from a purely anti-speciesist perspective.

About Unite for a Real Alternative

Unite Trade Union will produce a political blog/commentary which will be regularly updated and published on our social media and related platforms in the Republic of Ireland. Blog posts can be emailed to you on application. In the neoliberal era Unite believe it is critical that modern Trade Unionism fights for members and their communities inside, and outside, the workplace. The factors that impact on our members lives do not stop when they leave work, or end at what used to be referred to as ‘the factory gate’. Most posts are written by Brendan Ogle, Unite’s Senior Officer in the Republic of Ireland.

Tag: Laura Broxson

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