Marty Walsh has been nominated to serve as the United States Secretary of Labor in the Biden administration.
The position: Advises on workplace wage and safety policies.
Marty Walsh was born in Dorchester, Boston, to John Walsh, an Irish American originally from Callowfeenish, a townlandnear Carna, County Galway, and Mary (née O’Malley), from Rosmuc.[4] The couple emigrated to the United States in the 1950s[5] and gave birth to Marty in 1967.
Walsh grew up in the Savin Hill area of Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood.
He was diagnosed with Burkitt’s lymphoma at age 7, forcing him to miss most of second and third grade and repeat fifth grade. At age 11, after going through years of chemotherapy, a scan revealed no traces of the cancer.
He went to high school at The Newman School and, in 2009, received a bachelor’s degree from the Woods College of Advancing Studies at Boston College.
Walsh joined the Laborers’ Union Local 223 in 1988 at age 21 and was elected secretary-treasurer and general agent of the Boston Metropolitan District Building Trades Council, a union umbrella group, in the fall of 2010.
In 2011, Walsh was named head of the Boston Building Trades.
Walsh was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1997 at the age of 30. He represented the Thirteenth district of Suffolk County, which includes Dorchesterand one precinct in Quincy. He was the Chairman of the Committee on Ethics, and served as a Co-Chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party Labor Caucus. During his tenure he also served as the co-chair for the Special Commission on Public Construction Reform.
In April 2013, Walsh announced he would run for Mayor of Boston in the 2013 mayoral election. He resigned from the Trades Council position in April 2013 after formally announcing his bid for mayor.
In a speech given on January 25, 2017, Mayor Walsh reaffirmed Boston’s status as a sanctuary city for people living in the country without documentation. The address was given in the same week that President Donald Trump threatened to pull federal funding to cities that have a policy to not prosecute people for violating federal immigration laws.
Walsh won two terms as Mayor of Boston.
Walsh resides in the Lower Mills neighborhood of Dorchester with his long-time girlfriend Lorrie Higgins.
He is a recovering alcoholic, with more than twenty years of continuous sobriety in a twelve-step program.