Anthony Marco, Hamilton and District Labour Council President and VP Canadian Labour Congress representing ON Labour Councils Credit: Anthony Marco
Happy Labour Day!!! It seemed fitting to share the sage words of educator, labour and social justice advocate Anthony Marco on this auspicious day.
This encore presentation originally aired June 12, 2025 and remains the most listened to podcast on Small Change. And, that’s for very good reasons. Make the time to listen to Anthony Marco as we discuss the fact that capitalism is the root of all racism and explore what it will take to truly challenge capitalism’s intrinsic racism in the workplaces of unionized and non-unionized workers alike.
Anthony Marco has been the Hamilton and District Labour Council President since 2014 and has been sitting as a Vice President on the Canadian Labour Congress representing Ontario Labour Councils since 2017.
For over a decade, Anthony has been involved in community organizing and coalition building among working class people as well as community organizations in Hamilton and has given talks and presented workshops on these topics. Anthony has also presented to several union groups on the importance of community organizing, member mapping, and building relationships across a community.
As a high school teacher with 25 years of experience, and as a local union officer for many of those years, Anthony came to learn much about public education in Ontario spanning from the classroom to the boardroom. He has been able to marry this knowledge with a passion for social media and communications by giving workshops and lectures around Ontario.
I heard Anthony speak at the International day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination event hosted by the The Hamilton Anti-Racism Resource Centre on March 21, 2025 and his message completely blew me away!
Anthony’s op-ed, Why Anti-Racism Policies Aren’t Enough, formed the basis of the comments he made on behalf of the Hamilton and District Labour Council. Those comments included, “Racism in the workplace is not an isolated issue; it is a symptom of a larger system that thrives on inequality. If we want to dismantle racism, we must dismantle the system that perpetuates it.” That system is capitalism and Anthony maintains it’s the root cause of racism as well as classism.
I invite you to listen as Anthony explains what he means when he states, capitalism is the root of all racism and what it would look like to truly challenge capitalism’s intrinsic racism in the workplace.
Anthony believes all labour needs to actively fight capitalism and racism stating in his Hamilton Spectator op-ed, “I stand in solidarity with working class comrades struggling to survive capitalism.”
Only about 30 per cent of Canadians — 26 per cent of Ontarians — are covered by a collective agreement. Anthony spells out why it’s important for non-unionized workers to join the fight to end racism and capitalism as well as how to engage and get buy-in from those workers.
We explore why dialogue and discussion are essential to ending racism and capitalism. It’s important to establish that dialogue and discussion does not mean debating issues, rather, it involves active listening that hopefully leads to a broadening of perspectives and deeper understanding of the issue. And, while dialogue and discussions must be safe, they should also be uncomfortable. Anthony explains why discomfort is necessary.
We also look at the role a Universal Standard of Living (USL) — also known as a Universal Basic Income — could play in eradicating racism and what that would look like. Anthony’s vision of a USL addresses the broader global implications and applications that are often left out of these discussions.
The educator, writer, podcaster and President of the Hamilton and District Labour Council has just finished co-authoring, The Little Book of Big Change Through Community Organizing, with his life partner. Find out what inspired this book that focuses on community organizing at the local level and includes practical applications.
Thank you for this incredible conversation, Anthony! And, for reminding Small Change listeners, There Is Power In A Union! In solidarity!
Additional information:
Anthony Marco’s Labour Day Op-ed: Why Labour Day matters more than ever
Sign up for Anthony Marco’s Substack site, The Rad Comrad.
The website for The Little Book of Big Change Trhough Community Organizing. The book is available by free Creative Commons PDF download or by a mail order of a physical copy through the ORDER page. The books are printed in a unionized print shop in our efforts to support fair wages and decent work overall.
Watch Anthony’s Cable 14 program Work in Progress to hear insightful conversations with union, labour and community leaders from the municipal, provincial and federal levels about the challenges that workers and working class families face in Hamilton and across the province and country.
Read Anthony’s April 15th op-ed in the Hamilton Spectator, Democracy is not meant to be convenient, that explores the dangerous precedent being set when governments are allowed to redraw the boundaries of public speech, to sanitize public space in the name of civility and to empower police forces to interpret and enforce those boundaries on the fly.
Thanks to everyone who read today’s article and listened to my podcast. With your financial support, a little Nicoll can make a lot of change.
You can also find my work in public parking, herizons, rabble.ca and on my Wix site. Follow me on Instagram, X @doreennicoll61, Bluesky @nicollneedschange and Facebook.
Music: Real Estate by UNIVERSFIELD is licensed under a Attribution 4.0 International License. freemusicarchive.org.
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