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The work world has changed a lot over 30 years. It used to be the case that most people got a job and stayed there. If not for life, then at least for a long, long time. That's not the case anymore. Employers don't like to make commitments to employees anymore. The idea of a full-time job with job security and benefits is becoming more and more a thing of the past. And we're all being encouraged to start our own businesses, without the recognition that self employment isn't for everybody. It's an increasingly precarious world. Today we take a look at the world of precarious work, and specifically, a couple of campaigns that are demonstrating that if we stick together, we can shore up those shaky foundations that so many of our incomes are built on these days. 1. The Street Labourers of Windsor (SLOW) down in Canada's most southern city, the International Workers of the World are organizing people who make their living off the street. This includes street musicians, panhandlers, people who pick up recylables, and even security guards. Andrew Nellis of SLOW talks to Scott Neigh of Talking Radical Radio. 2. We've heard a lot of stories about poor working conditions in the restaurant industry. We've also heard that it's hard to do anything about it for a whole host of reasons. Fred is one person who tried to do something about it by organizing his coworkers to get the overtime pay that they were legally entitled to. But in our next interview, you won't be hearing from Fred because even though he's no longer working in restaurants, he didn't want to broadcast his name, or even his voice. He was afraid of being blacklisted if he identified himself. Fred's friend Kvesche Be is now a contributor to the rabble podcast network. So even though Fred (not his real name either) didn't want to talk, he gave Kvesche permission to tell his story. 3. One of the big trends in post-secondary education these days is internships. But there it's also a practice that is highly criticized because many, if not most of these internships, are unpaid. Zahra Islam is a fourth year nursing student at Ryerson University and is also the director of community services with the Ryerson Students Union. She's involved in a campaign called Stop Paying to Work. rabble radio contributor Kvesche Be spoke to Zahra about the campaign and why it's needed.

Hard to believe it's the end of the year. But it is. 2015 is almost finished. And what a year it was. Today, we round out the year with a look back at the year that was, a look ahead to the next, and a couple of big changes. 1) Karl's end of the year podcast: We got an early Christmas present this year on October 19, when we finally kicked the grinch out of Who-ville. Stephen Harper is gone. It was a gruelling election campaign to cover. One of the good things to come out of it was that Karl Nerenberg, our excellent Parliamentary Correspondent, decided to start doing a podcast. To round out the year, I had a talk with Karl on the election that was, and the year to come. 2) Shane Dennis, a musician, activist and owner of the Unity Market, a cafe, recording studio and art gallery dedicated to social change in Barrie, Ontario: For the fifth year in a row, he's sleeping outside this Christmas in a makeshift shelter to raise money and awareness about homelessness for the David Busby Centre, a homeless shelter in Barrie Ontario. 3) Saying goodbye to the irreplaceable Meagan Perry: You might have noticed that rabble radio's usual co-host, Meagan Perry, hasn't been on the last two shows. A few weeks ago, she announced that it was time to move on to other things. That's great for her. Here at rabble.ca, we're going to miss her a whole bunch. More than a whole bunch. It was only fitting for her to come on the show and say her goodbyes.

This program comes to you from the Community Media Convergence, a gathering of community television, radio, online and gaming people from across the country. We all know that different media forms are coming together. Radio websites have video on them. Newspapers have podcasts. If rabble.ca had been around 20 years ago, we would have likely been a paper based magazine. And a radio show. There would have been no rabble tv because there aren't very many independent community tv stations out there. Now we're a whole combination of different kinds of media. The conference features two days of panels about everything from "Social Media: Is it Community Media and How Do We Leverage It?" to "Community Media 3.0: Games and Interactivity?" The third day is a policy development forum, where attendees will have the opportunity to help shape a policy proposal to support community media in the digital environment. That's just one of many examples of how media convergence works. On today's program, lots of ideas about how it could all work in the future. The first two segments were recorded at the conference. 1.) Cathy Edwards – organizer of the Community Media Convergence. A lot of the people at the conference are here to talk about community television, and that's because this conference was organized by the organization CACTUS, which stands for the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations. 2.) David Diamond – Artistic and Managing Director – Theatre for Living speaking at a panel called Maximizing Community Impact and Engagement. 3.) Stefan Christoff – excerpted from Talking Radical Radio – Music and Grassroots Politics in Montreal. When you think about music and radical politics, what usually comes to mind are the lyrics – from Public Enemy to Ani Defranco, Rage Against the Machine to Paul Robeson, the call to action and for change was found in the words over the melody or beat. Yet for Montreal based activist and musician Stephan Christoff – songs of solidarity can be instrumental….Using the power of collaboration Christoff believes that music can bring people together and nurture the imaginative, creative and even spiritual sides of ourselves. Christoff speaks with us about his music, his activism and how the two intertwine. This interview is an excerpt from Talking Radical Radio, the November 11th edition called Music and Grassroots politics in Montreal. He spoke to Scott Neigh.

It's been a great autumn for podcast anniversaries! 1.) One year ago on October 6, Indian and Cowboy made its internet debut. Indian & Cowboy is a listener supported media network consisting of Indigenous media makers, artists, storytellers, musicians & producers rooted firmly at the intersection between digital media art, podcasting & Indigenous Storytelling. Roshini Nair did this feature for rabble radio with Ryan McMahon, the founder of Indian and Cowboy. (click on the link for a transcript of Roshini's entire interview for rabble.ca) And 2.) The rabble podcast network celebrated its 10th birthday on September 10, 2015 in Toronto. It was a dynamic night, full of lots of things for us to think about as we look back and consider the future of podcasting. On the panel — Meagan Perry, who was our podcast network executive producer before she was bumped up the ladder to rabble.ca's editor in chief. Victoria Fenner, who took over from Meagan as executive producer of the rpn, moderated the evening. Also on the panel were Wayne MacPhail, one of our co-founders of the network, and Rick Harp of MEDIA INDIGENA , an interactive, multimedia magazine dedicated to Indigenous news, views and creative expression. And Nora Young, co-founder of the podcast The Sniffer and also host and producer of CBC Radio's program Spark. Nora begins our excerpt from the rabble 10th anniversary by talking about the big broadcasters and podcasting.

We're in the home stretch of Election 42. Just a little under three weeks to go. We're not running out of things to talk about yet. Far from it. On today's show — 1. We hear from Amara Possian of LeadNow about their campaign Vote Together. It helps us figure out who we should vote for to get rid of Stephen Harper. Especially in the swing ridings where a Conservative upset is a possibility. 2. And you know how Stephen Harper is always going on about how he's the best manager of the economy? The Conservative government's reliance on austerity and trickle-down economics has led to the most poorly-performing Canadian economy since the Second World War, according to Jim Stanford. He's co-author of the recent report, "Rhetoric and Reality: Evaluating Canada's Economic Record Under the Harper Government." Jim Stanford is an economist with Unifor. He spoke with Redeye host Jane Williams. 3. And finally, remember that Harperman song that everybody was singing a couple of weeks ago? You heard the song .. now … The Movie! When Ottawa civil servant and folk singer Tony Turner created his now wildly popular singalong Harperman, he didn't anticipate getting suspended from his job. Since then, the song has spread. Harperman singalongs happened in over 40 communities across Canada on September 17. And people are still singing it. And now, there's not just a song. There's a documentary in the works — two versions — a short one which is planned for release two days before the election. And a longer, full 90-minute piece which will explore some of the larger themes. Cody Lanktree and his company HamiltonSeen is doing the documentary. He talked to me enroute to a shoot in Ottawa this week. Photo: Sean Connors/flickr

It felt like summer was over when we got word of the election call, didn't it? OK, so now that Stephen Harper has spoiled our summer fun, time to spoil some of his. It works in the favour of Stephen Harper's Conservatives if voters stay home. Today we'll talk about why it's necessary for YOU … to get out and vote. We'll also hear about strategies to get out the vote among people who traditionally don't vote. Item 1: Be the Vote is a new organization that's taking action. It was started by a group of young Canadians passionate about getting youth to vote. They believe that youth must be an active and relevant force if they want politicians to listen to them. Victoria Fenner talks to Grace Kennedy, a student of Social Work at McMaster University in Hamilton. She's the founder and executive director of Be The Vote. Item 2: Getting Out the Student Vote – In July of 2015, the Canadian Federation of Students lost a court challenge and subsequent appeal in an attempt to have the Fair Elections Act ruled unconstitutional. Roman Jakubowski is president of the Lakehead Student Union in Thunder Bay. He spoke to the National Campus Community Radio program and the rabble podcast Groundwire, produced this month by Kootenay Co-op Radio in Nelson, B.C. They talked about how the Lakehead University Students Union will be supporting students' access to voting. Item 3: Voting in prison is a constitutional right. According to CBC News report last week, 54 per cent of federal inmates cast a ballot in the last election. The following is an excerpt of a an interview with Joan Ruzsa, first heard on The Prison Radio Show. The Prison Radio Show is broadcast from CKUT in Montreal. The show seeks to confront the invisibility of prisons and prisoner struggle, by focusing on the roots of incarceration, policing, and criminalization, and by challenging our ideas about what prisons are and the people inside our jails. Joan Ruzsa speaks on behalf of Rittenhouse, an agency dedicated to bringing healing, transformative justice instead of retributive justice in the criminal justice system. She explains the process for voting inside federal prisons. Thanks to the NCRA's program Groundwire for that clip. Item 4: Here at rabble.ca, we've been preparing for the dropping of the writ for many months. One of the highlights of our winter/spring season was an event which we sponsored with Canadian Dimension magazine. George Lakoff is an American cognitive linguist and author of Don't Think of an Elephant. He spoke to a crowd in Toronto about how conservative values have come to dominate public discourse. One of the things he talked about was voters in the middle, the ones who are conservative (small c) in some ways, progressive in other ways. Everybody is courting the centrist vote. Those are the swing voters. They could go any which way. They represent growth for every political party. That's why it's so important for political parties to try to understand them. George Lakoff provides these insights into the mind of the moderate conservative. Chip in to keep stories like these coming.

We're very proud of the fact that a lot of our podcasters at the rabble podcast network have their roots in community radio. A lot of our programs on the rabble podcast network are rebroadcast on community radio. On rabble radio 167, we're going to focus on community radio — both here in Canada and also in a couple other parts of the world. Because there's so much that we share with our comrades on the airwaves… we're doing media our own way, for our listeners and our communities. Not the advertisers. Over the past year, the rabble podcast network has developed our relationship with the National Campus and Community Radio Association and now have their ambitious news program, Groundwire, as part of our podcast network. Barry Rooke is the NCRA's new executive director about new directions in radio and new media. He talked to Victoria Fenner about what campus and community radio is doing to integrate new media into what has been traditionally, one-way communication over a transmitter. Continuing with our community radio theme, Frieda Werden of the Women's International News Gathering Service podcast and radio show prepared this feature this month on community radio in Ghana. And it begins with a community radio song! Women and Community Radio in Oaxaca — Loreto Bravo is a feminist hacker and anthropologist. She currently coordinates Palabra Radio, a collective based in Oaxaca, Mexico that uses community FM radio and other communications technology as tools of struggle. They have a special focus on women's and Indigenous peoples' rights and liberation. In this excerpt, Loreto Bravo spoke about the 2006 uprising in Oaxaca, Mexico which lasted more than seven months. It resulted in the deaths of more than 17 people. She began by talking about what happened the day that women took over the airwaves. Please support our coverage of democratic movements and become a supporter of rabble.ca.

Happy Birthday to us! Has it been 10 years of podcasting at rabble.ca already? Let the celebrations begin! rabble.ca led the pack when it came to podcasting. In 2005, iTunes didn't yet exist. There were no iPhones. It was truly the dark and silent ages. But our visionary crew saw and heard great potential. Today as we begin our celebrations we talk about the original idea behind the podcast network. Victoria Fenner, current rpn executive producer, talks to Meagan Perry, former exec of the rpn and now rabble.ca's editor-in-chief, for some of the highlights. Wayne MacPhail, The Podfather of the rabble podcast network, and director of emerging media for rabble.ca, talks about how it all got started. Charlotte Scott, the first exec producer of the rpn takes us to Podfest in Ontario, California in 2005, where people were marvelling that there were 15,000 podcasts on the Internet. (Apple says there are now 250,000 podcasts in 100 different languages on iTunes) A couple of Meagan's faves. Kevin Neish was detained in Israel for two days after the humanitarian ship Mavi Marmara, part of the Free Gaza Flotilla, was attacked and activists arrested. In this podcast he talks about his release and what activism means. From rabble radio 109. The Queering of Alberta: Darrin Hagen is a ground-breaking drag artist and author of a book about the drag scene in Alberta called "The Edmonton Queen." He is also a longtime producer for the Loud and Queer cabaret and writer of Queering the Way: an anthology from the Loud and Queer Cabaret. rabble.ca's Kaitlin McNabb called Darrin Hagen to talk about the book and some of the myths about queer culture in the place formerly known as Texas of the North. From rabble radio 137. You are invited! Come join the rabble podcast network as a volunteer. We're always looking for new podcast series, as well as people to do single interviews and recordings for our rabble programs rabble radio, rabble book lounge and Needs No Introduction. Email Victoria Fenner, the rabble podcast network's executive producer, at victoria[at]rabble.ca. Help us build the next 10 years of progressive Canadian history in sound! RABBLE IS READER-SUPPORTED JOURNALISM Like this article? Chip in to keep stories like these coming.

Pigs flew, hell froze over and the voters of Alberta elected a majority NDP government. We're coming up to the one-month anniversary of the election that shook up the whole country and struck fear into the hearts of the Harper Conservatives. Now that the initial euphoria is starting to subside, rabble radio invited two of rabble's own Albertans to weigh in on the discussion. Roshini Nair is the rabble podcast network's new intern. She's a student in Vancouver but born and raised in Edmonton. And rabble.ca's editor-in-chief Meagan Perry is also a proud Albertan, though she makes her home in Ontario now. Also featuring interviews with Geo Takach, author of the book Will the Real Alberta Please Stand Up, and Tom Radford, film director, writer and producer of many documentaries about Alberta, including Tar Sands – The Selling of Alberta.

It's getting green out there. Finally. It's been such a long winter. So this is the Get Growing edition. Today we have an assortment of stories related to how we get our food. Losing our grip on the family farm. Most people still believe that the land should be owned by independent local farmers who directly farm the land. But this system has been under serious threat for many decades now. Twenty years ago, the concern was that land was being bought by individual farmers with ever-larger land holdings, huge machinery and hired people to work the land. Now, even the large-scale individual farmer is being squeezed out by corporations and investment groups who are running these farms as agricultural businesses from afar. In 2010, the National Farmers Union authored a report called Losing Our Grip. The report looked at family farms and food sovereignty. The NFU has just revisited and updated the report. Jan Stromp is the president of the National Farmers Union. Jane Williams of Redeye asked him why so called "land grabbing" is harmful for local communities and economies. Community-supported fisheries. For people who want to know where their food is coming from, community-supported agriculture allows consumers to share the risks of food production with their local farmers in return for a share of the benefits, usually in the form of a box of produce that shows up on their doorstep all summer. It's known as Community-Supported Agriculture. Here's a twist on that theme .. what about Community-Supported Fisheries? Rob Johnson is Atlantic Coordinator with Seachoice, a national program that works to foster sustainable fisheries. He spoke to Moira Donovan about creating sustainable fisheries by supporting your local fisher people the same way you support your local farmers. Seed liberation. Modern agrobusiness techniques come with a high cost. In economic terms, farmers have become reliant on expensive seed and fertilizer. Intensive agriculture has also significant contributed to the degradation of land quality. And the change in farming techniques has also changed the way communities work. The Rural Reconstruction Project in the Western Highlands of Honduras are proving that progress which works in harmony with traditional ways is possible. Their partner, World Accord from Waterloo Ontario, has been working with PRR for 25 years. Beginning as a literacy project to teach farmers how to read and write at a Grade 6 level, the farmers are now producing their own varieties of seeds based on those which their ancestors have been growing for hundreds of years. Victoria Fenner, the exec producer of the rabble podcast network and rabble radio co-host, visited Honduras in 2010 and did this documentary with farmers high up a mountainside who are bypassing the multinationals and are farming their own way.