Former Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh

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Marty Walsh has spent his life fighting for working people, as a labor leader, as a public official and as a
private citizen. The son of Irish immigrants, Marty was born and raised in Boston’s Dorchester
neighborhood.

He started out by following in his father’s footsteps as a union construction worker, rising to become
president of Laborers Local 223 in Boston and eventually head of the Greater Boston Building Trades
Council, representing roughly 35,000 blue-collar workers on major construction projects across the
region.

In 1997, at the age of 29, Marty won election to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, where he
spent 16 years fighting for workers’ rights and good jobs. A champion for civil rights, he took a
courageous early stand for marriage equality, supported communities of color, immigrants, seniors,
veterans and he served as a State House leader on substance abuse treatment and recovery support.
In 2013, he was elected Mayor of Boston, an office he served in for seven years. He led Boston through a
period of historic success, growing the city’s economy, reducing crime, investing in schools and libraries,
and ending chronic homelessness among veterans in the city. His groundbreaking policies included the
nation’s first municipal Office of Recovery Services, paid parental leave for city employees, climate
action and flood protection strategies, universal pre-kindergarten and free community college for low-
income students.

In January 2021, President Joe Biden nominated Marty to serve as the United States’ 29th Secretary of
Labor. After taking office during the COVID-19 pandemic, Marty worked to support both laid-off and
frontline workers. He subsequently leveraged the President’s historic economic recovery to strengthen
worker power and improve job quality. During his two years in office, Marty brought high-quality job
training programs to millions of Americans, strengthened mental health support and access to
treatment, and ushered in a historic surge in worker organizing.

In February 2023, Marty was appointed as the Executive Director of the National Hockey League Players’
Association, returning to his roots as a labor leader where he can continue to champion the importance
of workers’ rights and the shared benefits of collective bargaining for all.

Marty is someone who never forgets where he came from. A survivor of Burkitt’s Lymphoma as a child,
he has fought to expand access to healthcare for all. Embracing recovery from alcoholism as a young
man, he has always believed in compassion and second chances. Grateful for the role that unions played
in helping his immigrant family join the middle class, he co-founded pre-apprenticeship programs that
have become national models in helping people of color, women and justice-involved individuals enjoy
successful construction careers as union members.

He is a graduate of Boston College and shares his life with his long-time partner, Lorrie Higgins.

Connect with Marty Walsh

Website – www.MartyWalsh.org

Connect with Comedian Jimmy Tingle

Transcript – Please note, this Transcript is AI Generated. It has not had the discerning ears of a real human to edit it, as such, there are bound to be a few errors

Jimmy Tingle 0:00
I was thinking about doing a triathlon. Then they told me what it was.

I guess what you got to do is you got to swim two miles, then ride your bike to Maine.

I guess then you run home

I was thinking about it. I said, I’ll think I’ll try my own triathlon, the Jimmy tingle triathlon. No. What you do here is you take a cab to Fenway Park when the New York Yankees are in town.

You sit in the bleachers you eat or drink whatever you want.

You wrote for the New York Yankees

then you run home

everybody this is Jimmy, welcome to another episode of the Jimmy tingle show and this week with politics, Code Blue, a startup political organization that’s going to try to make progress in this country. And today we have a very appropriate guests for Labor Day weekend. Marty Walsh, he spent his life fighting for working people as a labor leader as a public official and as a private citizen, the son of Irish immigrants, Marty was born in the beautiful Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood. He started out by following in his father’s footsteps as a union construction worker rising to become president of Labor’s local 223 in Boston, and eventually the head of the Greater Boston Building Trades Council, representing roughly 35,000 blue collar workers on major construction projects across the state. In 1997, at the age of 29, Modi won election to the Massachusetts House of Representatives where he spent 16 years fighting for workers rights and good jobs, a champion for civil rights. He took a very courageous early stand for marriage equality, by the way, when it wasn’t very popular ladies and gentlemen, even here in Massachusetts, he’s always supported communities of color, immigrants, seniors, veterans, and he served as a State House leader on substance abuse treatment and recovery support. In 2013, Marty Walsh was elected mayor of the city of Boston and office he served him for seven years. He helped lead Boston through a period of historic success, growing the city’s economy, reducing crime investing in schools and libraries and ending chronic homelessness for veterans in the city of Boston. His groundbreaking policies including the nation’s first municipal Office of Recovery Services, paid parental leave for city employees, climate action and flood protection strategies, universal pre K education and free community college for low income students. Get this drumroll please because we’re celebrating Labor Day weekend and 2021. President Joe Biden nominated Marty Walsh to serve as the United States 29th Secretary of Labor after taking office during the COVID 19 pandemic money worked to support both laid off and frontline workers. He subsequently leveraged the President’s historic economic recovery to strengthen workers power and improve job quality. During his two years in office money brought in high quality job training programs to millions of Americans strengthen mental health support we all need that I speak for myself and access to treatment and ushered in historic surge in worker organizing. In February 2023. Marty was appointed as the Executive Director of the National Hockey League players association, returning to his roots as a labor leader where he can continue to champion the importance of workers rights and the shared benefits of collective bargaining for all. Marty is someone who never forgets where he came from. And that’s why he’s doing this show, folks. We go back about 2530 years. I want to call him to do the show. He made time out of his busy schedule for us. He never forgets his roots, a survivor of Burkitt lymphoma as a child, he has fought to expand access to health care for all embracing recovery from alcoholism. As a young man, he has always believed in compassion and second chances, grateful for the role that unions played in helping his immigrant family join the middle class. he co founded pre apprenticeship programs that have become national models and helping people of color women and justice involved individuals enjoy successful construction careers as union members. He is a graduate of the one and only Boston College and he shares his life with his longtime partner, Laurie Higgins, please welcome to the show. This Labor Day weekend. The one the only the amazing Marty Walsh. Hey, Marty, how are you?

Marty Walsh 4:43
Jimmy, thank you for that introduction. That was wonderful. You’re going to go another 20 minutes.

Jimmy Tingle 4:51
Want people around the country to know who you are? I mean, most people do here in Boston, but your background is so awesome and authentic and and it’s just great to see you have done as well as you have. But I want to ask, How was it when President Biden, okay, the kid from Dorchester gets a call from President Biden to become the Secretary of Labor. What was that? Like?

Marty Walsh 5:13
Yeah, it was. It was surreal. I was in my office and City Hall. And I actually missed the first call. And I got a text from one of his people in the office and said, answer your phone. The President’s calling you so I texted back. Okay. President calls. We talked for a few minutes. He asked me, you know, we talked, I’ve known President Biden since 1997 rounds, the young State Rep. I met him. At number nine Park Street, there was an event there, Kevin Fitzgerald, and Johnny Rogers, and those guys were putting on event for him. And so from that point, until till then we became friends. And he asked me to be as labor secretary, and I was honored. I mean, I was it was bittersweet, because I knew I wouldn’t be leaving being near Boston, it was your job I love very much. But when the President of the United States called you and asked you to serve in his cabinet, it’s hard to say no. And I said yes. And so it was a very, it was kind of a unique experience, you know, thinking about, you know, when you think about my family, my upbringing, where I come from, it was such an honor to be asked by the President. And a few months later, I was sworn in by the Vice President into my role, and I served almost two years in that role. It was just an amazing experience working in Washington and seeing, you know, the national scene, I’ve done my government at every level, have done it in the state level, and legislature here in Massachusetts. I’ve done in the city level as mayor of Boston, and I’ve done it as the federal level. As a cabinet secretary, it really was an amazing opportunity and a privilege.

Jimmy Tingle 6:42
Yeah, I imagine. So how was it working in the White House? And what are some of the major things that you worked on? And what are you proudest of in your two year tenure there as Secretary of Labor?

Marty Walsh 6:54
What will you think of President Biden’s presidency, you know, he doesn’t get the credit, but he came in at a very interesting time, you know, came in after the pandemic could begin, you know, 12 and a half million people out of work. People were still wearing masks, the COVID vaccine had just really come out. And we were still in a very scary six point in America and the world quite honestly, with a pandemic. And the President had to do a lot he had to roll out a plan to get people vaccinated, you know, people before it became not popular to get vaccinated wherever that came from. People wanted to get vaccinated when when they went when the COVID began here. So he rolled out a plan we’re Institute we worked with him on that. And then he put a plan to get Americans back to work. And in a year, blessedly, a period 12 and a half million Americans, actually 13 million Americans went to work went back to work and new people went into the job market, unemployment in the country is low. today. It’s been low for most of the President’s administration. And he talked about building an economy from the bottom up in the middle out a little different than what you saw in the past the trickle down economy here, we all hear about nothing ever trickle down to the middle class and the poor. And that never happened. That country, the rich got richer. I’m not I’m not criticizing him for that. But but no one else benefited from a good economy. And what the President wants, wants to do wanted to do and still wants to do is build an economy that you can get if you’re if you’re living a poor person, or you’re just on the verge of the middle class. You have an opportunity to get into that. So President Biden put that on me. And working with Gina Raimondo, the former governor of Rhode Island Secretary of Commerce, Secretary Cardona, the education secretary to talk about how do we create pathways into good paying jobs. So as the president passed all this landmark legislation, we really double down on efforts of workforce development, job training, apprenticeship, and really helping people get the skills they need to move up, and we look use all the tools. So for example, you think about Boston, you know, us think about apprenticeship, the building trades have a strong apprenticeship program, we look in other areas, we look in the tech area, and in the biotech area of creating opportunities. When you think about Midwest and the South, and the North and the Northeast and the northwest, I mean, all these regions a little different, but at the end of the day, they’re still people that need help. And we can we work, we worked on a plan, it’s still going out throughout the entire country, to make investments to make sure that when somebody goes into a job training program, when they’re done with that job training program, they’re actually tied to a job in the past that always has been the past with the way we’ve done job training programs with no job at the end of it, you really have to have that job at the end of it. There’s no point of training people for something and hoping that they get a job that so that that’s what we tried to do differently in the Biden Harris administration.

Jimmy Tingle 9:45
So Marty, I know you’re Secretary of Labor, and usually, I mean, I know the unions are a big part of that. But when you’re talking about these investments, and you’re talking about working all over the country, there’s a lot of Right to Work states and that don’t have unions. I imagine you’re trying And to help everybody whether or not they’re in a union or not in the union, you’re trying to put people back to work and invest in the communities that need the investment. Is that correct? Yeah, you’re

Marty Walsh 10:09
right. Ironically, in these rights or work states, if they so called call right to work, basically, what they’re there for is to, is to prohibit people from organizing unions. But you know, those, those states, a lot of them don’t have strong strong job training programs, places like Mississippi, Alabama, you have it in pockets in those states, but you don’t have it collectively across the state. So we I spent a lot of time I visited 44 states. In my time as labor secretary, I went to red states and blue states, it didn’t matter to me. I mean, I was when when President Biden asked me to be the Secretary of Labor, I represented all people, Democrats, Republicans, union members, non union members. And really, it’s about creating a pathway into good jobs. And we we have to do that you can’t, you can’t be biased towards one group of folks, you have to try and create opportunities. And, you know, I had some amazing experiences. But when I say that the amazing experiences were very sad situations, I was down in Mississippi, in the Delta region, and there was black farmers down there. And there would be in discriminated against by the farm owners. And you know, the Department of Labor was able to go in there and do investigations and get about $600,000 in back wages. So it’s about jobs. And it’s also about worker protections. I mean, the Department of Labor. When President called me and asked me actually before he called me, I was vetted for the job. And you go to this expensive that. And you know, I’m sitting home one day, I’m on the couch, and I grabbed the iPad, and I google Department of Labor, because I kind of knew the fundamentals of department labor, but I didn’t really know what the department labor did. And you know, there’s 67 departments in the Department of Labor, anything from the Women’s Bureau to International Labor Affairs, to mine worker safety to everything you can imagine. And you know, there’s a lot there. And every single one of those areas, touch a worker, whether it’s creating a pathway into a good paying job, or making sure a worker has safety on the job site through OSHA, while making sure that workers have the ability to mobilize and move up in the world and get better better paying jobs.

Jimmy Tingle 12:08
Is the American labor movement stronger with the Biden administration at the helm? And how important is that to keep that moment? If that’s the case? How important is it to keep that momentum? Moving forward? Yeah,

Marty Walsh 12:21
let me talk about a couple different things. I think the American labor market is stronger than it’s ever been. I mean, there are more jobs and people. So we have to figure that out. And that really is going to be comprehensive immigration reform. At some point, we need that because we have more jobs in America open than we have people available for those jobs, even if every abled person decided to go to work tomorrow, in America, oh, could go to work. These are folks that are sick, these are folks that had to retire, that aren’t disability that that are hurt, they can’t go to work, we still wouldn’t have enough people. So we have to figure out how do we fill these jobs that are being created right now in the United States, and that exists the United States of America. That’s one aspect of it on the labor side on the union side unionization side, in the last 50 years is never been more of a positive. You know, polling numbers and interest in auger collective bargaining and organized labor, you’re seeing companies like Google workers, and Google tech workers organizing you seeing companies all across American manufacturing, we have more manufacturing jobs now in the United States today than we did in the last 30 years and any president jobs will be created. And the chips and science Act that was passed to create the microchips that’s only going to grow on manufacturing base, the United States of America. So we’re less dependent on foreign imports. We’ve seen people in the labor movement that that that that workers are using their collective power to get earn more wages, workers in America being paid more today. There, I think it’s 4%, year over year increases in the past that was less than that. So there’s there’s a lot of momentum in the positive way for workers in America. And you know, there’s always this natural conversation, big business verse worker, and I think that there’s an opportunity for us to do both. There’s an opportunity for businesses and I’ve said this a million times, I don’t really care how much a CEO makes, as long as they treat their workers fairly. As long as they pay their workers a good wage, as long as they offer their workers health care, they offer their work of some sort some type of pension or, or retirement plan, as long as they treat their workers fit. And that’s not always the case in America. And that’s where we have the disparities. And then in our communities of color, that black community, Latino community, but particularly the black community, the unemployment rate is always higher than the white community. But we’ve seen that gap close, a little page not closed, there’s still a long way to go. But we’ve seen that gap closer, but we need more of that we need to make sure that if you’re a young black kid and Harlem or Roxbury, Dorchester, wherever you live, you have an opportunity for the American dream. So that is a comprehensive plan that the President’s put together, was putting together and working towards I should say,

Jimmy Tingle 14:51
well, it’s refreshing to hear that you that you have a good working relationship or had a good working relationship with businesses. And to your point about the a lot of the businesses are under pressure to treat people correctly. And not only their workers, but the environment that they’re working in the communities that they’re working in. So there’s a triple bottom line, you know, what’s good for the community, what’s good for the worker, what’s good for the environment, you just

Marty Walsh 15:21
said, there’s a lot of pressure on businesses to treat people, right, which is true. But businesses shouldn’t need pressure to treat their employees, right. They should naturally do it. And I think that if you treat your employees, right after the pandemic, what happened was a lot of people weren’t going back to work. But they were, they were bouncing from job to job because they had the ability to get better paying jobs. And then companies started to use incentives to get attract people to that company, and thinking about long with long term ways of keeping them in their businesses. I mean, companies should be doing that, regardless, they shouldn’t have to be forced to treat their employees correctly. Some of the companies that treat their workers really well, during the pandemic didn’t didn’t have a shortage of workers after the pandemic, well as the pandemic is we went on to the pandemic. So it really is interesting conversations that we’re having here. And, you know, when I was the mayor of Boston, you know, when I first got elected, you remember this, Jimmy, I was regarded as an anti business guy, labor guy and going to ruin the city. And in seven years, you know, we had a triple A bond rating for seven consecutive years, we added 160,000 jobs, we did all kinds of building and construction, we did all kinds of growth in the city of Boston. And when I left, the business leaders like, wait a second, we don’t want you to leave, there’s an opportunity to train and prepare workers for good paying jobs, support, organized labor and grow business. We’ve seen it here in Boston, and we’ve seen it in other parts of the country.

Jimmy Tingle 16:42
And the interesting thing is when workers make more money, they spend the money. They spend the money on the businesses in the cities and in those states. So it is a win win situation. And it’s good that you have that type of relationship. And it seems that the Biden administration has that type of relationship with business. Tell me how do you think overall the Biden administration is doing?

Marty Walsh 17:07
You know, I think it’s unfortunate President Biden does not get the credit for what he’s done in his presidency in two and a half years. The poll numbers don’t reflect it. But he continues to move forward every day, when you think about what he has done in two years. I would argue his legislative package successes in two years in the first two years was greater than most presidents complete eight year term. You know, he was able to get an infrastructure bill passed the largest in history of the country. The President passed the bill $1.3 trillion bill to update our infrastructure, we have crumbling roads, crumbling bridges, I trains a mediocre, we don’t have investments there. That investment in that bill was a bipartisan bill where Republicans and Democrats support it, we have to continue to invest in our infrastructure in America if we want to remain competitive. So that bill passed, then the President passed the science that ships in science Act, which is a bill that creates opportunities that the microchip that’s in everything, and these computers we’re talking through, and our cell phones and our cars, and our ring, doorbells and, and all the things we have in our life, we invented the chip in the United States of America, and we will make less than 10% of those chips. And you think they’ve been made all over the world. And now we want to bring that manufacturing back to the United States, those are going to be good paying jobs, there’s going to be jobs that we’ll be able to raise a family on middle class jobs with, we don’t need to have a PhD and something that’s really important. So the President passed that bill, the president passed the bill, dealing with climate change, global warming, a lot of people kind of, you know, shake their head at that. But let’s be completely honest, you look at the world today, you look at the tragedies, we have the natural disaster, we’ve had the fires in the West, and, you know, the hurricanes in the South and the nor’easters that we’re having and all this, you know, there is something going on in the environment, the science backs it. And the President made investments in electric vehicles and electric charging stations moving forward. You know, the economy, we had terrible inflation numbers a year ago, almost double digits than those those numbers are coming down. So, you know, the President has his administration has worked extremely hard. It’s hard to tell that story because people, you know, people read the news, but the clips that are on social media, and sometimes on the nightly news isn’t about the accomplishments and what what we need to do. It’s about what’s the latest hot topic of the day, and it doesn’t necessarily reflect the President’s overall administration and what he’s done. So I personally think he’s done a great job. I think that you know, a lot of people criticize his age, a lot of people criticize a lot of things about the president, but I spend a good amount of time with him. He’s in great shape. And I’ve been in meetings where, you know, I was in the car one day in his going from A to an event and he was looking at a speech and he basically dictated a brand new speech to the speech writer and the guy without any notes in front of them. And I mean, he gave the speech was a great speech and, you know, a guy that’s not with it can dictate the speech out of his memory to a speech writer, because I’ve done it before I’ve written speeches, and I’ve given speeches, tons of them. It’s really complicated. So that’s just one little antidote that tells you that the guy is sharp, and he’s moving forward. You know, I think it’s unfair, he hasn’t gotten the the positive press or treatment I think that he deserves

Jimmy Tingle 20:28
one of the biggest things that the Democrats seem to always need is messaging, clear messaging so that the accomplishments resonate with the general public. And a lot of that is who’s in the media, and who’s doing the talking? It’s also Washington,

Marty Walsh 20:42
Jimmy, I spent some time down in DC, and it’s Washington. I think that when you’re a mayor or your your city councilor, you’re held accountable by your constituents, and they watch and what you’re doing every day. And if you don’t do something even called out in Washington, the Senate and the Congress, not everyone has that same approach. And they have arguments and debates over issues that I think the average person is kind of like scratching their head about. They’re important debates, not saying they’re not, but but they kind of don’t, there’s a little bit of a little bit of out of touch there. I think, not with everyone but with some people. And I think that that that makes it more complicated. People don’t view Washington as a positive place. And very important business goes on every single day for every single American. And certainly almost every single person affected in the world,

Jimmy Tingle 21:30
having worked in Washington for two years as Secretary of Labor, having been the mayor of the city of Boston for seven years. When you’re working on the national level money and seeing the president up close, getting to know him, seeing how he operates, see what he stands for, seeing what the Democrats stand for? Are you optimistic about the future? I think

Marty Walsh 21:54
the Democratic Party needs to it needs to be a little more broader. And we’ve lost a lot of people in the last 25 years. And I think we have to think about that we can’t just write people off. And a lot of it is over social issues that people make their votes on. But at the end of the day, they should be really looking at economic issues, and the Democrats in Congress really support the economic issues for the average everyday person. And I think that, you know, when you’re thinking about making those decisions, and I did, the party has to do a little better job of framing that and bringing people back into the fold. You know, a lot of people that I know, that grew up as Democrats and the longer Democrats are either independent, maybe they vote Republican more than often than not. We have we have some work to do there. I mean, we really do. When you think about when you think about moving forward, then you know, listen, I’m a pretty progressive guy. People don’t necessarily say I’m the progressive. I mean, there was a story in the paper the other day, I mean, I supported Johnny Fitzgerald for for city council here in Boston. And you know, they said, Oh, you know, more conservative leaning, I laughed, because my record, if you look at my record, I’m I’m super progressive. You know, you put in your intro, I supported marriage equality support, women’s rights for the environment. I support all the issues, quarry reform, working to give Reentry Program jobs and things like that. But I think the there’s just too much labeling going on. And in the Democratic Party, we’ve labeled too much.

Jimmy Tingle 23:20
Yeah, money. The reason you’re progressive from my take on it is because it’s authentic. You grew up in Dorchester. You saw people who were out of work, you saw black people, white people, Hispanic people, you saw you met gay people, you want the same, it seems to me that you want what’s good for everybody, for everybody. And so it’s a very authentic approach, working in labor, bringing home a paycheck, your parents are immigrants. I mean, all that all those different dimensions to your personality. And your background, it seems to me has shaped your your worldview. And it clearly falls in the progressive column. And the same with the with your vote for equality of marriage was a big vote at the time, it was not a slam dunk at all. I think it passed by very slim margin, if I’m not mistaken. So you’ve always been on the right side of those things. And when you say we have to reach out to more people, are you talking about the working class? You’re talking about the white working class in the Midwest? And if so, but people of color, of course, but do we have to deliver for them economically? Do we have to deliver for them in terms of goods and services to just indicate that the government is on this side?

Marty Walsh 24:35
I think we need to do about a story. You know, up in this region up and up and up in the northeast, we think about losing white middle class, mostly men, from Democrats or Republicans. But you’re going out on the south, you’re going out of Florida, losing Latino Republicans and Latinos to the Republican Party, Latino community. So like if we want to be truly the inclusive party, we have to think about how do we how do we open our doors and make everyone feel comfortable in our party. And that’s something And then I think we have to work at it even stronger. You know, you go around the country, you know, you think these the Southern Right to Work states we talked about they vote high numbers of Republicans, you go through them, there’s a lot of poor people there and you kind of figure out how how does this compare? How does this work? But if people are just, you know, people, I think you’re right, I think part of it is telling the story of the economy. But part of it’s also telling the VAT, what’s our value statement? Well, who are we as a party? And how do we move forward

Jimmy Tingle 25:28
money coming into 2024? I assume you’re optimistic about the next election? Or are you? And if so, what do you want people to do?

Marty Walsh 25:37
Yeah, you know, the next election is coming around the corner pretty quickly, the Republicans are going to have their their debates and their issues that they’re all dealing with. And we’ll see what happens. And President Biden is focused on doing his job as President exits America, you know, on the campaign side is gone a little bit, but they’re really focusing on there’s a lot of work to do. I think, you know, when you’re the president, you have the strength, the ability, the strength of being the president, but you also have the weakness of being the president, because you want you campaigning for your job. Again, President Biden right now has been focused on from what I’m reading and seeing and talking to folks in Washington, on being the president, there’s still a lot of work to be done. There’s a lot of unrest in the world. You we still have Russia, Ukraine, that’s going on, we have areas of, you know, different economies that are on the verge of collapse around the globe. So we you know, as America, we need to make sure we stay engaged in these different countries. You know, the economy is no longer just the national economy. So is a worldwide economy. So the President’s been focused on that, but I feel good going into 2024, the president has a good record, to run on lots of accomplishments. And I think that that’s where he will be able to get his opportunity to talk about what he’s done in in history at the time, three and a half years as president, and let people take a sitz take a moment to let it sink in. And understand that we are in a better situation today than we were the day the President took over the day the President took over, we will not look very favorably on a world stage. We had a pandemic that was out of control. We had vaccines that just came out we had people that were dying, still, we had 12 and a half million people out of work in America, we didn’t have a path forward in a very short period of time. And since that time, people are back to work, we’re moving in the right direction moving forward, inflation is coming down. Wages continue to stay rise a bit. Unemployment is very low still. So you know, economy economically, it was still in a very strong position.

Jimmy Tingle 27:27
So if President Biden gives you a call and says, Mommy, can you help me out on the campaign trail? Can you can you go to Ohio, Pennsylvania, can you go to Michigan? Can you go to Wisconsin? Can you say a few words in your new role? Are you able to do that?

Marty Walsh 27:43
I’m gonna do a little bit of campaigning, obviously, you know, I represent the union and I have a job now with the National Hockey League play Association. But certainly everyone knows, I’m very close to the President that, you know, when they said to me, you can’t you can’t be with the president help the President. Obviously, you know, I left the administration to go work for the hockey, NHL PA. So you know, I’m going to support President Biden, he’s been my guy for a long time. And, you know, he’s going to continue to be my guy until the day he says, I’m done being president, you know, whether that’s hopefully, hopefully, five years from now when he retires and enjoys his retirement. But, you know, I think that that’s something that, you know, I’m a loyal person. And that’s why I am

Jimmy Tingle 28:21
and mighty. How is the new job? By the way, we didn’t get to talk about it too much. But you liked the new job. How was it representing plays in the National Hockey League?

Marty Walsh 28:30
It’s great. You know, I there’s about 750 players, active players in the NHL. What’s interesting about it is a lot of people look and think about, you know, these are millionaire athletes, and there are millionaire athletes in the NHL, but they’re not everyone, not everyone’s a millionaire athlete. So we need to make sure that we’re representing all the players, you know, as a labor organization, you don’t realize like, what what could possibly come up in the world of hockey that that a union needs to be involved with. And there’s a lot there’s a lot we have, we have players in Arizona playing in a college rink. We have issues with the ice, we have issues, sometimes with different teams and in different situations that come up. Hockey players are the average citizen, they have dealings with mental illness. They have dealt with alcoholism, their families, their struggles, the healthcare, the pension. So all the things that the labor organization represents is the same thing here with NHL PA, you represent the same challenges, same issues that plague pit players have that people have. So it’s been fun. It’s been interesting. I’ve had a chance to go around now meet a lot of the players. This is my busy season coming up in the season starts going around and getting to know all the players and getting to visit them and talk about what the future of the the union is going to look like.

Jimmy Tingle 29:42
Well, Marty, thank you so much for taking time out of your very busy schedule to spend Labor Day weekend Friday morning. We’re recording this September 1, it’ll aired today. It’ll be on it’ll be on my website at Jimmy tingle.com. It’ll also be on politics Code Blue. Our new partner, a political startup organization that’s doing some great work and they’re really excited for 2024. And we want to keep this country moving forward. So Marty, great to see you. Again, congratulations on all your success. And congratulations, especially on the work that you’re doing on behalf of other people. It really means a lot to everybody here in Boston. And everybody that works in this country is being affected by the efforts that you guys are making in the Department of Labor safe travels and thank you again. Thanks, very happy Labor Day.

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