Susan Walsh/AP Photo
Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh looks on as President Joe Biden speaks about a tentative railway labor agreement, in the Rose Garden of the White House, September 15, 2022, in Washington.
At every State of the Union address, one member of the Cabinet in the line of presidential succession stays off-site in case a catastrophe strikes. This year, the designated survivor was Labor Secretary Marty Walsh. The choice was all too fitting, since Walsh already had one foot out the door.
Walsh abruptly informed President Biden that he is leaving soon to take a lucrative job as executive director of the National Hockey League Players’ Association. The post pays $3 million a year, not bad for a working-class kid from Dorchester.
Before becoming Boston mayor, Walsh headed the Boston area building trades, one of the relatively strong and well-compensated remnants of the labor movement. But professional sports and players’ unions are working-class royalty. Other than professional sports unions, no union executive director makes a seven-figure salary.
Walsh got the offer partly because of his close ties to Boston Bruins owner and NHL Board of Governors Chair Jeremy Jacobs, who has donated thousands of dollars to Walsh’s campaign committees over the years.
Walsh’s career move blindsided the White House, senior Labor Department officials, and his close allies in the labor movement. According to the hockey magazine Daily Faceoff, Walsh introduced himself to the NHLPA’s executive board only last Friday, ahead of the league’s all-star weekend in Florida, with final contract negotiations still to come. Reportedly, there is some pushback from players.
To put it mildly, something about this story doesn’t smell right. For starters, to do this to Biden, on the eve of his State of the Union address, as one source puts it, is “unconscionable.” Walsh is both one of Biden’s closest personal friends in the Cabinet, as well as the symbol of Biden’s cultivation of the working class. When you are interviewed for a Cabinet job, you are explicitly asked to commit to stay for the entire term.
Walsh’s abrupt move also raises the serious question: What kind of representative of a union gets the job partly because the match was brokered by management? That has all the appearances of a sweetheart deal—a union rep who will be easy to deal with. It may be just a coincidence that Walsh has close ties with the board chair of the owners’ association, but it sure looks like hell.
This also could explain the abruptness. It looks as if Walsh had to ice his deal, so to speak, before it had time to come apart.
Walsh has been an important working-class symbol, but a so-so labor secretary. He is good at mediating disputes, but doesn’t have much taste for the details of policy, and has often been outplayed. As a negotiator, Walsh has also been criticized for letting the railroads off too easily as the price of averting a national rail strike, doing far too little to alter draconian work rules.
Because of Walsh’s abrupt departure, there will not be enough time to choose, vet, and confirm a successor before Walsh moves on.
Walsh has been a great spokesman for labor on the road, but far from a hands-on secretary. His critics inside the department and out say he has let key regulations—on overtime, independent contractors, occupational safety and health, as well as child labor—languish for far too long, for lack of his personal involvement.
Walsh never moved from Boston to D.C., but commuted to Washington only as necessary, and was heard to complain that he didn’t “get” Washington. As Boston mayor, he was clearly in charge. As labor secretary, he was in a cauldron of rival power centers. The NHLPA gig allows him to stay in Boston.
A key question now is who will succeed Walsh. The obvious candidate is Deputy Secretary Julie Su. She has been tough, progressive, and hands-on.
As California secretary of the Labor and Workforce Development Agency, Su pushed through the state law giving gig workers the rights of other employees. She won court cases that compelled employers to pay workers the back wages they were owed.
Because of Walsh’s abrupt departure, there will not be enough time to choose, vet, and confirm a successor before Walsh moves on. As deputy, Julie Su thus becomes acting secretary and that gives her the tactical advantages of incumbency. With the labor movement mostly united behind Su, it would be an affront to Biden’s labor allies not to appoint her, and even more of an affront to remove her from her role as acting secretary.
But this will be a fight. Some of Biden’s strategists on the re-elect team may want the symbolism of a white guy to succeed Su. And unlike Walsh, Su has no personal relationship with the president. The White House, which is picking its shots, may not want this particular confrontation with business, which for the most part got along with Walsh—another reason why I rate his tenure as only so-so.
A coalition led by Uber and Lyft is already lobbying against Su. “Secretary Walsh recognized gig workers as an important part of the workforce with a unique need for flexible work,” Chamber of Progress CEO Adam Kovacevich told Politico. “It’s critical that the next Labor Secretary recognize the value of gig work. Unfortunately, Deputy Secretary Su’s history in California raises questions about whether she would respect the will of gig workers who wish to remain independent.”
When Su was confirmed as deputy in 2021, she received only a bare 50 votes. It’s not clear that Su could get the votes of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to be secretary. They killed the nomination of David Weil to head the department’s Wage and Hour Division.
The other leading candidate for the job is Andy Levin, a former member of Congress from Michigan and a former AFL-CIO deputy director of organizing. The labor movement would prefer Su and will support her elevation, but would likely be fine with Levin if Biden goes with him.
However, Levin might be just as hard to confirm as Su. So Biden’s best move may be to just keep Su as acting secretary, which the law permits him to do for the rest of his term.
Joe Biden deserved better. So did America’s labor movement.
