This week, we learned that Marty Walsh, President Joe Biden’s stern-faced and very Bostonian labor secretary, is leaving his Cabinet position to take a much more lucrative gig as the head of the National Hockey League Players’ Association. The news felt like a metaphor for the Biden administration’s dealings with the labor movement as a whole: A lot of promise, a lot of unnecessary compromise and, ultimately, a disappointment that the working class of the future will likely look back on with regret.
Since the Reagan era, even Democratic presidents have largely treated labor unions as institutions to take money from with one hand, and keep at arm’s length with the other.
Biden is often hailed as the most pro-labor president in generations. It is a fair title for him, but one that also reflects an incredibly low bar. Since the Reagan era, even Democratic presidents have largely treated labor unions as institutions to take money from with one hand, and keep at arm’s length with the other.
Walsh, a former building trade union official and mayor of Boston, was handpicked by major unions for labor secretary. He was viewed as solidly pro-union and personally close to Biden; unions believed he would serve as a predictable conduit of labor’s wishes. But as Walsh exits after an unremarkable two years, it’s clear that the decision by unions to settle on him, rather than advocating for a more radical, aggressive pick, was a miscalculation.
To be fair, Walsh lived up to his billing. He helped shepherd through a number of beneficial but not transformative regulatory changes that strengthened the position of federal contractors, independent contractors and other workers. In 2021, he paid a visit to a picket line in Pennsylvania — something that you might assume would be de rigueur for labor secretaries, but which is actually rather rare. He was in most ways a solid, unexciting ally of the union establishment.
To understand why this is not enough, it’s…
Read the full article here
