The Senate solid sufficient votes on Monday to substantiate Martin J. Walsh, the mayor of Boston and a former chief of town’s highly effective constructing trades council, as labor secretary.
Mr. Walsh’s nomination to the place had gained widespread reward from union officers, who have been captivated with having one among their very own oversee the division, a historic rarity. Many union officers regard his shut relationship with the president as a bonus for labor teams.
“As a result of he enjoys mutual belief and respect with President Biden, he will likely be positioned to place labor’s considerations entrance and middle on the nationwide agenda,” Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers, mentioned in an electronic mail.
Certainly one of Mr. Walsh’s prime priorities as labor secretary will likely be re-energizing the Occupational Security and Well being Administration, which critics have accused of failing to guard staff through the pandemic. The protection company lately put out new steering to employers on defending staff from Covid-19 and is contemplating a brand new rule that will mandate security measures that the Trump administration declined to difficulty.
The division has already moved to put aside various guidelines issued by the Trump administration that weakened employee protections. A kind of guidelines would possible have deemed most gig staff to be impartial contractors fairly than staff, making them ineligible for the federal minimal wage and extra time pay.
Below Mr. Walsh, the division will likely be charged with crafting replacements for a few of these guidelines. It can possible transfer to broaden different protections, corresponding to elevating the edge under which most salaried staff are mechanically eligible for time-and-a-half extra time pay, at the moment set at about $35,500.
Some progressive teams had urged Mr. Biden to pick a candidate from a extra various background as his labor secretary, however many union leaders touted Mr. Walsh’s report in Boston as proof that he could be a champion of all staff.
As mayor he supplied help to undocumented immigrants who federal authorities have been looking for to detain; pressed contractors to put aside not less than 40 p.c of their work on public building initiatives for racial minorities; and created gender impartial loos in Metropolis Corridor.
“If you recognize Marty Walsh, you recognize that he has transcended race and sophistication strains and fights for all with an actual concentrate on the weak,” mentioned Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Lecturers.
Mr. Walsh plans to resign as mayor this night, in keeping with an aide.