OPINION: We Can Do Better Than Marty Walsh
by A.E.
Much has been made of reports about a meeting between union leaders last week to unite on an endorsement for the incoming Biden/Harris administration's Secretary of Labor. Their victory has been taken as a green light for the labor movement, as workers slog through one of the worst economic, social, and political crises the United States has seen in decades.
Biden and Harris have already met with labor leaders—and company CEOs—to discuss a pro-worker approach to stopping the spread of COVID-19. Even without a Senate majority, the administration could use its executive powers to expand workplace protections and combat the virus, which has disproportionately impacted Black, indigenous, and persons of color (BIPOC).
But the current crisis facing the United States working class does not stop at the workplace. In response to the police murder of George Floyd, the United States exploded in some of the largest protests in the country’s history. Before there were national calls from heads of labor, rank and file refused to help bus anti-racist protesters to jail, demanded bereavement time for Black and Brown co-workers, made resolutions calling for the arrest of the officers who killed Floyd, and began pushing to exclude police unions from their organizations. In many ways, the 2020 iteration of the Black Lives Matter movement helped crystalize the massive inequality in our society and the means to take it on collectively.
In light of this social shift in response to a devastating status quo, it is disappointing to see union leaders support a politician like Boston Mayor Marty Walsh for Secretary of Labor. Although there currently is no consensus among labor leaders on who to endorse, Walsh has the backing of powerful labor leaders like Randi Weingarten, Lee Saunders, and Richard Trumka by virtue of his union roots.
Before he was elected mayor in 2013, Walsh headed up the Boston Building and Construction Trades Council. The often white-dominated building trades has a reputation for political conservatism and outright racism. In this context, labor leaders argue that appointing Walsh as Secretary would "appeal to construction workers who supported President Donald Trump."
Conventionally, the answer to political polarization is "appeal to the right." In practice, this often translates to "appeal to white workers and drop divisive issues like racism.” Although it is true that more than 70 million people voted for Trump, progressive measures won big in conservative localities. Florida voted to raise the minimum wage to $15, Colorado voters stopped a ban on so called "late term abortions", and a county in Vermont voted to extend voting rights to noncitizens. Even as mainstream party politics move rightward, voters continually embrace progressive ideas. Connecting to conservative voters does not have to mean betraying a progressive agenda. In fact, it is when labor edges right, assuming anti-oppression politics will not connect with white workers, labor will likely lose BIPOC communities, a huge part of the working class.
A Gentrifying City
Walsh is a liberal Democrat who grew up in working-class Boston. He is not a blatant racist like Trump. Nor is he culpable for anything like Biden’s 1994 Crime Bill, identified by activists as the spark of mass incarceration. To his credit, in the wake of renewed protests against police brutality against Black people, and in response to the undeniable numbers of BIPOC Bostonians dying or affected by COVID-19, Walsh declared racism a "public health crisis" for Boston.
Words do matter, but actions matter more. The hallmark of Walsh’s mayoralty has been gentrification and displacement of the BIPOC communities he claims to support. Meanwhile, the housing market and construction industry have profited from a major increase in development projects in the city. A study conducted by MIT researchers and City Life/Vida Urbana—a longtime, well respected local housing justice organization—found that "seventy percent of market-rate eviction filings occur in neighborhoods where a majority of residents are people of color." In addition, researchers found that Boston "has one of the country’s most expensive rental markets, a shortage of affordable housing and a history of segregation and racial discrimination." Developers have descended like vultures on Black communities in neighborhoods like Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan, communities where Boston's highest poverty rates are most concentrated. The combination of COVID-19 related unemployment and predatory developers has brought BIPOC communities into a severe eviction crisis.
To add insult to injury, major development projects continue during the pandemic. The Harriet Tubman House, a landmark in Black-Boston history, is being demolished for luxury condos, despite a year of protests from the community. In East Boston, the largely Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking immigrant communities protested the Suffolk Downs luxury development project for more than a year. While they earned some concessions in the end, here is how community organization PUEBLO East Boston summed things up: “The plan approved for Suffolk Downs ensures that there will be a new community in Suffolk Downs, with 10,000 luxury units in which 87% is dedicated to high market-rate housing, [segregating] itself from the rest of East Boston … [t]he rising tide of housing prices and cost of living will push working-class families out of our neighborhood and city.”
What about these workers and their lives? Why shouldn't the labor movement be concerned about whether Walsh "appeals" to them? Affordable housing is as much a labor issue as it is one of racial justice. Walsh may say he is doing everything he can to stem the displacement, but his administration has never acted to stop a development project opposed by communities. Legally, “the city has broad discretion to reject any planned development that is ‘injurious to the neighborhood or otherwise detrimental to the public welfare.’" Walsh could step in any time to check developers whose projects destabilize BIPOC neighborhoods in Boston for profit. Doing so is the least a friend of labor would do, particularly during a racist "public health crisis."
Unemployment and Jobs
The fact that workers of color in Boston are largely excluded from working on the new development projects is another blow dealt by the housing market boom to BIPOC communities. Racist exclusion from construction work and trade unions is an historic problem for Boston. Activism in the 70s, often led by Black workers, helped create policies for hiring that would require "work crews to be 51% Boston residents, 40% people of color and 12% women for most major building projects in the city, whether private or city-funded." This policy was passed in 1983, but no city administration since has made a real effort to hold contractors accountable.
Under Walsh’s reign, minority employment on major city construction projects has remained flat. In response to recent complaints, the Office of Equity and Inclusion under the city’s Economic Development Office argued that there is no legal basis to prove that there is a pool of “qualified” workers in communities of color that contractors are ignoring. With this lazy argument, the Walsh administration leaves BIPOC communities behind.
Here, we can see a pattern emerge. Walsh, a supposed labor advocate and self-declared fighter for racial justice, routinely pits construction labor and BIPOC communities against each other by supporting luxury development while letting the housing crisis run unabated. Further, he refuses to touch the systematic exclusion of BIPOC Bostonians from one of the most profitable industries in the city.
Walsh’s Legacy
Walsh has not shown the same silence or passivity toward public sector unions. Most recently, he has actively cut members of the Boston Teachers’ Union (BTU), an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers (whose President, Randi Weingarten, supports Walsh) out of meaningful decisions over school reopenings, despite union protests. After negotiating a hybrid model, where most teachers and students would go to school remotely, while high needs students and their teachers would meet in person as long as infection rates stayed below 4%, Walsh and the Superintendent broke the negotiated agreement in early October to attempt expanding in-person instruction. While this was halted by rising infection rates, Walsh and Boston Public Schools have not returned to bargaining safety measures with BTU. Just last Thursday, Walsh announced plans to reopen four schools for students with disabilities as soon as the following week. The disrespect for educators and all school workers in the BTU, which holds the largest unionized force in the city and serves largely Black and Brown families, and leaving them out of crucial health and safety discussions, is about Walsh's ability to control labor and resources in Boston's most marginalized communities.
Conclusion
Racism and labor repression run the city of Boston, and there must be a deeper reckoning with the Walsh administration before elevating him to the Department of Labor. Communities of color make up the majority of Boston’s population, and an even larger majority of its working class. Therefore, the economic, social, and political concerns of these communities are central to any assessment of Walsh as a labor ally. The struggles of Black people against state violence have impacted labor nationally in profound ways. On Juneteenth this year, UAW for the first time in its history led a work stoppage in the name of justice for George Floyd. With the actions labor led in Minnesota, the Chicago nurses fighting for PPE, and the street occupations in Portland, Oregon, the working class is showing that it has the ability to fight economic and social struggles together.
Support for Marty Walsh as Labor Secretary exposes how some in the United States labor movement are out of touch as more people are recognizing the intersection of racism and exploitation. If Walsh is labor's ideal Secretary of Labor, our sights are too low. Now, after booting Trump out of the White House, it is time to leverage rank and file labor power to make demands of Biden for the benefit of a diverse working class. We can start by saying “no” to Marty Walsh.
A.E. is a labor activist in Boston.