Some rare good news!
 

Biden’s pick for Secretary of labor is Marty Walsh, strong union supporter and past union organizer. This could have a strong influence on the next contract.

“Walsh, a former union worker, has a long history with labor. He served as president of Laborers Local 223 and, before becoming mayor, headed up the Boston Building Trades — a union umbrella organization.”

See Biden’s comments below.

Marty understands, like I do, the middle class built this country, and unions built the middle class,” Biden said. “He sees how union workers have been holding this country together during this crisis, health care workers keeping our hospitals safe, clean, and effective — and efficient. Public service workers fighting against budget shortfalls to keep communities afloat. Port workers, car haulers, warehouse workers, folks keeping our air and rail systems running. They’re literally what’s keeping us going. They deserve a secretary of labor who knows how to build their power as workers.”

In his own remarks, Walsh said “the word labor means everything to me,” recalling his family’s immigration story from Galway to Dorchester, where his father joined the laborers’ union. In the midst of the pandemic, Walsh said he’d seen up close how workers face “impossible conditions.”

If you want to post about the vaccine please go to that thread. Thank you.


Scoop

Marty Walsh was a trade union guy and he’s been in politics for a long time.

Not a terrible pick and definitely a friend of unions but it will be interesting to see if/how it helps in our negotiations under the RLA.

YAWN.

"Public service workers."

This pick will certainly be 100% behind shoring up public sector union pensions at taxpayer expense (CA, IL, NY). He might (!) give us the favorable nod when it comes to RLA activity, although the first time Congressman X or Senator Y gets delayed or mildly inconvenienced, that'll be the end of that.

The billionaire class isn't about to back a renaissance of blue collar private unions, stop offshoring of manufacturing, or flooding labor markets with cheap labor (be it in the fields or in high tech). Unless you think he's going to stop Bezos from whipsawing between vendors, and big tech from importing brainpower at 1/2 price, or collusion among techies to keep wages down by disallowing talent "poaching".

Caesar Chavez (a true labor man) understood that private sector unions are pointless if the labor supply is effectively infinite. That's unquestionably the direction this country is going.


Good for GDP. Good for "the economy", if the economy is only GDP. Definitely good for all of our 401(k)'s. But good for blue collar, private sector union formation...not so much.

If unions are the goal, historically speaking, asking nicely of any political class has not been the solution. Labor v. capital has always been a pendulum swing; I don't see this particular administration (or any in the past 40 years) being a true friend of labor.

If you can't beat them, join them. We make enough money in this profession that we can turn our labor into capital. Invest wisely in businesses and real estate to join the capital side of the equation. Teach others to do the same and the gap narrows.

The truth is Capitol always aligns with capital, no matter which party you believe it. It's just a matter of who's capital is buying the Capitol.

I concur with Sailing here. Marty Walsh is a true friend of labor. While we can’t expect miracles this is about as good of a choice for Sec Of Labor as it gets. All the major trade unions are strongly in favor of his nomination.

How did we fare when a community organizer (who can be more labor-friendly than that pedigree?) held the White House as well as both houses of Congress? I don't remember any favorable changes to the RLA then...and we had just emerged from a sizeable "haircut" via Chapter 11.

Confidence is low for any positive change this time as well.

Im thinking on the lines of you as well. History has seen this set up before and it didn't bare any more fruit. In fact some of the biggest contract gains took place under the R brand of politics. I wont be holding my breath.

The best way to control wages and quality of life in a workplace is to control the labor supply, and or the supply equation in general.

I foresee the same issues ALPA-PAC was fighting in 2015/2016: ME3 and Flags of Convenience. I hope I'm wrong, but like it was stated above, these happened under a "labor-friendly" administration.

A5S