WCVB-TV
BOSTON- Calling him a “good friend and a stand-up guy,” President-elect Joe Biden on Friday introduced Boston Mayor Marty Walsh as his nominee for Labor Secretary.
Walsh, 53, who is a former top union leader, is a longtime friend and supporter of the incoming president.
“I look forward to working with you to deliver good jobs with dignity, security, with prosperity and purpose to all American families,” Walsh said.
If confirmed, Walsh would be the first union member to serve in the role in nearly half a century.
“But it isn’t just the COVID crisis or the economic crisis that threatens their wellbeing. Working people have been struggling for a long time — under the erosion of their rights, and under deep inequalities of race, gender, and class,” Walsh said. “For the last four years, they’ve been under assault — from attacks on their rights; their livelihoods; and the unions that built the middle class.”
“Marty knows worker power means not just protecting the right to unionize but encouraging unionization and collective bargaining,” Biden said. “It means protecting pensions. Ensuring worker safety. Increasing the minimum wage. Ensuring workers are paid for the overtime they earned, like we fought to do in the Obama-Biden Administration, but this Administration weakened. And making sure that we have a trade policy where for every decision we make, unions are at the table, focused on winning good jobs for American workers.”
If Walsh takes the position, Boston’s city charter states the City Council President Kim Janey would serve as acting mayor until the next election later this year. Janey would be the first woman and person of color to lead the city.
Before becoming Boston’s 54th mayor in 2014, the Dorchester native was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, a member of Laborers Local 223 and served as the head of the Building and Construction Trades Council from 2011 to 2013.
Biden has made multiple visits to the city of Boston over the last few years.
U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch congratulated Walsh on Thursday and said he is suited for the job having championed labor unions.
“I just got off the phone with Mayor Walsh,” he said. “It’s important at this moment in time when we have a Secretary of Labor who has actually stepped on the work boots and done the work. That’s a rare perspective at a Cabinet-level position.”
Biden also announced his nomination of Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo as commerce secretary.
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