Marty Walsh
Martin Joseph Walsh is an American politician and trade union official who served as the 53rd mayor of Boston from 2014 to 2021 and as the 29th United States Secretary of Labor from 2021 to 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, Walsh resigned from his position as the US Secretary of Labor in March 2023 in order to accept a position as executive director of the National Hockey League Players' Association. Before his mayoralty, he served as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, representing the 13th Suffolk district from 1997 until 2014. As a trade union member, Walsh worked his way up to serve as the head of the Boston Building Trades Council from 2011 until 2013.
Walsh was elected mayor of Boston in 2013 and was reelected in 2017. He was regarded as friendly towards real estate developers, and the city experienced a building boom during his mayoralty. He added policies to the city's zoning code that were inspired by the federal affirmatively furthering fair housing policy. He successfully negotiated for a 40-minute school day extension in Boston Public Schools. He also served on the leadership of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. During much of his mayoralty, Boston struggled with homelessness at Mass and Cass, which was ongoing at the time Walsh departed from office. While he supported Boston's bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics, he ultimately reneged on his promise to sign the host city contract's financial guarantee, which contributed to the collapse of the bid. In 2014, Walsh signed the Boston Trust Act, a so-called "sanctuary city" ordinance, into law. Amid the first Trump administration's federal hostility towards such policies, Walsh voiced his continued support for the city remaining a sanctuary city. In 2015, he supported the passage of a city ordinance to provide municipal employees with paid parental leave. The ordinance was passed and signed into law by Walsh. He supported an ordinance in the city council which regulated short-term rental of housing units, and signed it into law in 2018. In 2016, Boston and General Electric struck a deal for the corporation to move its headquarters to Boston. At the end of his tenure, he dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic's impacts on Boston.
Serving from March 2021 until March 2023 in the Cabinet of President Joe Biden as United States secretary of labor, Walsh was the first former union leader to serve in that position in roughly 45 years. Walsh, a recovering alcoholic who has been sober since 1995, was the first-ever Cabinet member to openly be in a twelve-step program for recovery from addiction.
Since 2023, Walsh has been the executive director of the NHLPA. During his tenure the union negotiated with the NHL, IOC, and IIHF terms of an arrangement to allow NHL players to compete in the 2026 and 2030 editions of the Winter Olympics. Walsh negotiated the terms of a four-year collective bargaining agreement reached in mid-2025 between the NHLPA and NHL, which will enter effect ahead of the 2026–27 season.
Early life, education, and career
Walsh was born on April 10, 1967, in Dorchester, Boston, to John Walsh, an Irish American originally from Callowfeenish, a townland near Carna, County Galway, and Mary, from Rosmuc, Co. Galway. Walsh's parents emigrated separately but married in the United States in 1959. His parents both left from Shannon Airport, with his father leaving in 1956 and his mother leaving in 1959.Walsh grew up in the Savin Hill area of Dorchester, where he lived in a triple-decker. He was diagnosed with Burkitt's lymphoma at the age of 7, forcing him to miss most of second and third grade and repeat fifth grade. At the age of 11, after going through years of chemotherapy, a scan revealed no traces of the cancer. Walsh went to high school at The Newman School. While a teenager, Walsh would begin drinking beer, ultimately becoming an alcoholic. Walsh would later seek treatment after hitting what he considered "rock bottom" in 1995.
Walsh initially dropped out of college and entered the field of construction. He later took night classes as an adult, and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in social science from the Woods College of Advancing Studies at Boston College in 2009.
In an early venture into politics, Walsh was a political volunteer for President of the Massachusetts Senate William Bulger. Walsh later volunteered for State Representative James T. Brett's campaign in the 1993 Boston mayoral election. Brett lost to Thomas Menino, who Walsh would numerous times come to be at odds with during his political career.
Massachusetts state representative (1997–2014)
Elections
In 1996, Walsh ran an unsuccessful write-in campaign for the Massachusetts House of Representatives seat that James T. Brett had vacated. Despite resigning his seat, Brett was still listed on the ballot for the regularly scheduled 1996 election. As the only name listed on the ballot, Brett defeated Walsh and other write-in candidates. Since Brett did not take his seat, a special election was held in 1997, which Walsh won. Among those that Walsh defeated in the Democratic Party's primary election were Assistant District Attorney Martha Coakley and attorneys Charles Tevnan and James Hunt III. Michael Jonas of The Boston Globe reported that Walsh's victory benefited from "organizational ties and personal loyalties," with Walsh performing particularly strong in his own neighborhood of Savin Hill. Walsh's seat, the 13th district of Suffolk County, represented Dorchester as well as one precinct in Quincy. Walsh was reelected to eight two-year terms, often unopposed.File:Mayor Thomas M. Menino with State Representative Martin J. Walsh, City Councilor Maureen Feeney and others at Savin Hill MBTA Station opening.jpg|thumb|right|2005 ribbon cutting ceremony for the renovated Savin Hill station.
L–R: Boston City Council President Michael F. Flaherty, Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation Daniel Grabauskas, State Senator Jack Hart, Walsh, Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healy, Boston City Councilor Maureen Feeney, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino
Committee assignments
During his tenure, Walsh served as the co-chair for the Special Commission on Public Construction Reform. He also served as chair of the House Homeland Security and Federal Affairs Committee, as well as the chair of the House Committee on Ethics. He was also vice chair of the Joint Committee on Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure and the vice chair of the Joint Committee on Municipalities and Regional Government. Other committees he served on included the Joint Committee on Banks and Banking; Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture; Joint Committee on Health Care; Joint Committee on the Judiciary; Joint Committee on Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Joint Committee on Public Safety; House Personnel and Administration Committee; and House Steering, Policy and Scheduling Committee.Votes and sponsored legislation
Walsh supported same-sex marriage. In 2004, Walsh voted against legislation that would define marriage in Massachusetts as being between "one man and one woman". The following year, he voted against separate legislation that would have limited marriage to heterosexual couples. In supporting Walsh's 2013 mayoral campaign, Arline Isaacson, co-chairwoman of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, credited Walsh with having worked to urge more conservative members of the state legislature against passing a ban on same-sex marriage after a 2004 decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court legalized same-sex marriage in Massachusetts. In 2007, Walsh voted against a same-sex marriage ban, which was defeated 45–151. In 2013 and 2023 interviews, Walsh has called this, "the proudest vote I ever took as a state legislator." In 2013, Walsh was one of several legislators that signed onto a joint petition introduced by Representative Sarah Peake and Senator Patricia D. Jehlen that established the Special Commission on LGBT Aging.After Governor Mitt Romney used his gubernatorial veto in 2005 on a bill to expand the research of human stem cells in Massachusetts, Walsh voted against overturning the governor's veto. In 2005, he voted against reinstating capital punishment in Massachusetts. He co-sponsored legislation that would permit undocumented immigrants to receive in-state tuition at universities. The legislation was defeated 95–56 in January 2006. In 1998, he opposed Massachusetts Question 2, a ballot measure that would have decriminalized possession of less than an ounce of cannabis.
Ahead of the ultimate 2006 passage of the Massachusetts health care reform, Walsh supported efforts related to reform healthcare in Massachusetts with the goal of universal coverage. Walsh joined the vast majority of the House in voting in support of the healthcare reform legislation that was ultimately enacted. After the healthcare reform legislation was partially signed into law by Governor Romney, Walsh voted for the successful overrides of Romney's partial vetos on segments of it.
Walsh was one of a number of co-sponsors on legislation to have Massachusetts join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact which passed in the House on July 9, 2008. In 2010, Walsh voted in support of similar legislation which passed the legislature and was signed into law by Governor Deval Patrick.
On February 13, 2013, Walsh introduced a bill to have The Modern Lovers song "Roadrunner" be named the official rock song of Massachusetts. The song's writer, Jonathan Richman, came out against this, saying, "I don't think the song is good enough to be a Massachusetts song of any kind."
Other matters
Despite some organized local opposition from civic associations, Walsh supported the Pine Street Inn organization in their pursuit of converting a six-family house in his district into transitional housing for the homeless. Despite support by fellow union leaders for the construction of dormitories on the University of Massachusetts Boston's campus, Walsh sided with many of his constituents in opposing their construction.In 2002, Walsh considered resigning from the state house in order to accept an appointment to serve as Suffolk County registrar of deeds, but ultimately declined the position and remained in the state house.
In 2008, Walsh supported John H. Rogers's unsuccessful effort to beat out Robert DeLeo to serve as the next speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.