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).

CV available here.

Textbook Costs and Post-Secondary Education: journalists ask the wrong questions | The Citizens' Press

Defending Student Rights

The school year has begun for most of those going (back) to post-secondary programs and with it comes the barrage of 'news' reports on the cost of school supplies. What is really frustrating about these stories is the analysis seems to be that the cost of school supplies and living expenses is too high, but the same journalists writing these stories do not touch on the costs for education as a public service.

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New approach is possible and needed for social policy in Alberta

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Social Finance

A new study by the Parkland Institute details the devastation to Alberta's social services sector following decades of experimentation by the provincial Tories. The main goal of many of these initiatives was to cut government spending on social welfare and offload provision to anyone willing to take them on – for-profit and not-for-profit organizations alike.

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Social Impact Bonds: The Next Stage of Casino Capitalism

Social Finance

Social Impact Bonds come from the same dark place in the financial world as complex derivatives, the trading of which lead to the great financial crisis. They are a way for the great gamblers of financial markets to place bets on 'success,' in this case betting on the delivery of social services on the cheap. It is a disaster in the making for anyone who actually needs support.

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Stopping privatization is fighting climate change | Graham Cox

Keeping climate change on the agenda between heat waves, droughts and ice storms might seem difficult as other current economic-system related tragedies take centre stage. However, we should not leave out climate change and its connection to capitalism when talking about privatizations of infrastructure and the undermining of democratic oversight and control of utilities.

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Expert analysis on the attack on workers' rights to join a union

The following public intellectuals and experts expose the use of Orwellian-named 'Right to Work' laws by conservative and US Republican activists as a cynical political attack against workers' rights and organized labour. This list of articles is specific to the fight to defend the Rand Formula in Canada, the right of unions to be political agents as part of defending their members interests through bargaining and political work, and the problems with current and rumoured changes to Canadian labour laws.

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What's Left: 2015-04-20 Volume 9

WhatsLeft

Ontario Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne has decided to embrace classic Thatcher (and Harris/Hudak) neo-liberal Conservative ideology for electricity policy. This week, ex-TD banker and new privatization czar Ed Clark released a government report calling for the complete corporatization and privatization of Hydro One. Hydro One is the public transmission and rural distribution arm (also known as 'the grid') of Ontario's electricity system.

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Marx in Soho comes to Fredericton April 30, May 2

Resident Citizens' Press contributor Jeffrey Bate Boerop will be taking on the role of Marx in Howard Zinn's acclaimed “Marx in Soho” at Saint Thomas University's Black Box Theatre in Fredericton New Brunswick. If you're in the area between April 30 and May 2, you should check it out.