Peoples Social Forum #PSF2014 Session on the Progressive Trade Alternative
Join us Friday, August 22 at 2:45pm at the Peoples Social Forum MRT 211 for an in-depth discussion on a progressive trade alternative for Canada.
Graham Cox
Graham Cox is a labour union researcher at Unifor focusing on economic, bargaining, and policy in the energy, road, rail, and marine sectors.
Previous to Unifor, Graham was a researcher at the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). At CUPE his work focused on economic and policy analysis for the anti-privatization, trade, post-secondary education, utilities, employment insurance, special projects, and organizing files.
Before working at CUPE, Graham served the student movement as National Researcher of the Canadian Federation of Students and chairperson of the National Graduate Caucus.
Graham has worked as a union organizer for the PSAC, CUPE, and the CFS with a focus on graduate student teaching assistant, research assistant and contingent academic staff union drives. This included leading drives to organize academic workers at the University of New Brunswick, UPEI, and Memorial University of Newfoundland.
Please also see articles under the author Editors (What’s left).
CETA Endgame Brings Panic and Revisionist History
A report in from a German social democratic newspaper brought some last minute scrambling from politicians on vacation here in North America. However, even if corporate-rights provisions were not included in CETA, it is still a bad deal for working people in Canada and the EU.
Background on Opposition to Investor State Dispute Settlement in Free Trade Agreements
Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanisms allow foreign investors to bypass domestic courts to challenge government legislation and laws before unaccountable international arbitration tribunals.
Leftnews.org is at LabourNotes #ln2014
Leftnews.org is attending this year's LaborNotes Conference in Chicago, Illinois and will be reporting on some of the events and workshops.
Paternalistic tendencies and ideological blind spots of journalists
The expression of protest is to remind the administration that students run their campuses. Sometimes this mass political expression comes across as a bit contradictory, but that's the nature of liberal arts academies. Neil Macdonald of CBC disagrees however and he is outraged at the very notion that students should have a say about who speaks to them at graduation ceremonies.
The Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) and the Corporate Agenda | PSI #canlab
Authors: Scott Sinclair and Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood
Labour union activists confront climate change at LaborNotes #ln2014
For the first time, unions and how they need to mobilise against climate change made it on the list of discussion points at Labor Notes. There is a lot of history to why it took so long to make climate change and green alternatives a priority (spoiler: it has a lot to do with some powerful trades unions being opposed). However, the progressive (and historically correct) position on this is winning across the labour movement and it is now considered an essential struggle by the majority of workers.
The Labour Struggles in Latin America panel at LaborNotes #ln2014
The session included presentation by six union activists from Colombia, Chile, El Salvador, Mexico and Argentina.