On Thursday, the Associated Press reported that President-elect Joe Biden strategies to appoint Boston Mayor Marty Walsh. He is his former union boss to serve as U.S. Secretary of Labor, quoting two anonymous sources aware of the situation.
Reportedly Mayor Walsh is President Biden's personal friend, and he presided over his second inauguration in 2018.
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According to the Associated Press, Walsh was the former president of Laborers Local 223. Thus he "has a long history with labor." Also, he served for more than a decade, holding senior positions with Boston's Building and Construction Trades Council, "a union umbrella organization" while in the state legislature.
Reportedly, AFL-CIO, a federation of 55 unions representing more than 12.5 million workers across America, led by their President Richard Trumka, began reaching out to fellow union supervisors in November to support Walsh's nomination. In his Twitter account, he wrote, "Walsh "will be an exceptional labor secretary for the same reason he was an outstanding mayor: he carried the tools."
Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers said, "I think Marty Walsh is a great idea for labor secretary." It is a part of the AFL-CIO.
Weingarten also said, "the AFL-CIO had compiled a list of ideal candidates to present to Biden's transition team."
Walsh has also gotten the support of Lee Saunders, the president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). With 1.4 million personalities, it is one of the huge unions in the AFL-CIO coalition.
On Thursday, in a statement issued, Saunders said, "After four long years of brazen hostility toward working people, the Labor Department will now have leadership that is true to its mission and purpose. Mayor Walsh is one of us. In the union movement, he cut his teeth."
Becky Pringle, leader of the National Education Association, shared the teacher's amalgamation had also been working with the Biden-Kamala Harris transition "to ensure that there are strong advocates for unions at the table in the cabinet."
State Sen. Marc Pacheco, described as "a top Massachusetts Biden backer who served with Walsh in the Legislature," as he said the mayor "knows people in every aspect of both the national and international labor movement," as per the Boston Herald quoted.
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Below is Walsh's labor record in Boston, which the outlet has provided.
"But the mayor's administration has had labor-related dust-ups, most recently regarding the federal criminal charges related to accusations that his top lieutenants pressured the Boston Calling music festival organizers to use union labor. Two Walsh administration high-ups were convicted - before a judge then threw out the decisions and acquitted them both."
"His administration took the flak for connections to four Teamsters charged with threatening "Top Chef" employees over that show's use of non-union workers. Testimony entwined Walsh's City Hall in that scandal, but the mayor claimed vindication after the jury found the Teamsters not guilty in 2017, earlier in Walsh's tenure."
"City Council President Kim Janey, if Walsh does go to Washington, and will become the acting mayor. She'd be the first woman and first person of color to sit in the big office on Boston City Hall's fifth floor. It would also open the floodgates in the 2021 mayoral race, which has drawn two high-profile challengers in Andrea Campbell and Michelle Wu's city councilors."
Walsh is 53, an Irish immigrants' son, and raised in the Dorchester section of Boston's working-class.
