“Secretary Walsh will bring with him the experience necessary to meet our current challenges, which include the reopening of the economy and getting Americans back to work quickly and safely,” said Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, a senior member. of the Republican Party on the Senate working committee. “Secretary Walsh also understands that the conversations between work and management must be balanced.”
Walsh said during a press conference on Monday that he would travel to Washington on Tuesday to take an oath and that he would officially resign as mayor of Boston that night. He is due to start work at the Frances Perkins Building this week.
The unions welcomed Walsh’s confirmation as a transition to a more worker-friendly Department of Labor.
“For four years, working families have lived with a Department of Labor dedicated to serving a handful of elite interests,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement on Walsh’s confirmation. “Now, the power to ensure safety and equality in our workplaces has been transferred from an unforgiving corporate lawyer to a proud brother in the union.”
“He will work to expand rights, freedoms and protections for all, not just for the rich and corporations,” added AFSCME President Lee Saunders. “As secretary of labor and close ally to the president, he will be a powerful and effective voice for workers in the Biden government.”
Walsh will be tasked with implementing the Biden administration’s agenda in the department, which includes stricter enforcement of job security and expanding learning training opportunities, among other changes.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is working on a temporary emergency safety standard specific to the coronavirus that would require employers to take certain measures to protect their workers from exposure to the virus.
President Joe Biden asked the agency to finalize the standard by March 15, but so far the Office of Management and Budget has not indicated that it has received the standard for review – the last step before the rule was made public.
Walsh will also oversee the agency while administering pandemic emergency unemployment programs – which have been the main targets of fraud during the Covid-19 pandemic – and provides technical assistance to state agencies that have struggled to pay for much needed aid.
Several of these programs have been extended until September under the Democrats’ nearly $ 2 trillion bailout package approved earlier this month.
The Department of Labor issued guidance last week directing states on how to implement these new changes. But Walsh’s work has been cut for him: States have been struggling to reprogram their old-fashioned computer systems to pay for aid, and some have recently started paying for some of the benefits extended by the December aid package.
Walsh is the last ministerial-level official to be confirmed, and the vote followed a Senate action on Biden’s nominees for the Cabinet in recent weeks, after the pace of government confirmations has fallen short of his predecessors.
“American workers will finally have one of them leading the Department of Labor, someone from working America who will fight for working America,” said Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer on Tuesday.