Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central, Please welcome Labor Secretary Marty Walsh.
Speaker 1: M Secretary Walsh, Welcome back to the Day Show. It's
Speaker 1: great to be A lot's happened in five years, It
Speaker 1: really has. I mean the last time you were here,
Speaker 1: you were the mayor of Boston, and now you have
Speaker 1: come back and you are the Labor of Secretary, which
Speaker 1: means that you do what exactly, I run all the
Speaker 1: jobs in America. Yeah, it seems like America is doing
Speaker 1: a good job right now with the jobs. You know. Obviously,
Speaker 1: COVID was one of the worst periods that the world
Speaker 1: has seen. You know, millions of people lost their jobs.
Speaker 1: The economy was in tattas. Now things are coming up,
Speaker 1: but it's an interesting time. The administration wants to get
Speaker 1: people working, and more importantly, the administration wants to get
Speaker 1: people working in jobs that actually allow them to earn
Speaker 1: a living, which is key because I think many people
Speaker 1: have jobs. Not everybody can earn a living from the
Speaker 1: jobs that they have. It's a true statement, you know.
Speaker 1: And so at the same time you have the FED
Speaker 1: who's trying to shrink how much money people can earn.
Speaker 1: It's a really good time to be in the job
Speaker 1: market right now because you can earn a lot of money.
Speaker 1: But it seems like in trying to control interest rates
Speaker 1: there are conflicting interests. How do you how do you
Speaker 1: deal with this? Yeah, well, the the FED is their
Speaker 1: own plan and they're working to bring down inflationary pressures
Speaker 1: that everyone in this audience and on the country of feeling,
Speaker 1: and President Biden rolled out a plan as well to
Speaker 1: to to deal with inflation. One is gas and we've
Speaker 1: seen for nine straight weeks in a row gas prices
Speaker 1: come down. I'm I'm of the camp that you know,
Speaker 1: a good paying job is important for America. It's good
Speaker 1: for people. Uh. And I know that there's some fete
Speaker 1: is said at some point, you know, having a little
Speaker 1: bit unemployment might be good. I actually want to do
Speaker 1: everything I can to get more people working. We've had
Speaker 1: two amazing months in a row of job gain United States.
Speaker 1: I want to continue to see that trend that wants
Speaker 1: people to move from from jobs to paying mediocre into
Speaker 1: better paying jobs. I want to see people to use
Speaker 1: their power with their companies to earn better wages. You know,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, it's it's about keeping
Speaker 1: people working and that that moves our economy, more money
Speaker 1: in the economy, and I think the President wants they
Speaker 1: see these jobs being still being created. Is America's focus
Speaker 1: on protecting the jobs or protecting the people who are
Speaker 1: meant to be in those jobs. And the reason I
Speaker 1: asked that is because I've noticed that different countries have
Speaker 1: different approaches, you know, when it comes to this. For instance,
Speaker 1: um in Sweden and in some Scandinavian country they're really
Speaker 1: proud of saying, look, we don't actually care about the
Speaker 1: jobs themselves. We care about the people and we just
Speaker 1: want to make sure that people can earn a living
Speaker 1: wage and will move them around. In America, it feels
Speaker 1: like a lot of the conflict comes from the fact
Speaker 1: that people are trying to protect the jobs. I'm a
Speaker 1: coal minor, you know what I mean. I'm a railway worker,
Speaker 1: I'm a policeman, I'm a and and now the job
Speaker 1: is almost entrenched, when in fact the person is the
Speaker 1: is the thing you're trying to protect. How do you
Speaker 1: find that balance a you're trying to protect the job
Speaker 1: or the person. It's very different. I mean in Europe,
Speaker 1: a lot of European countries, when the pandemic began, people
Speaker 1: were sent home, they were paid a salary from their employer,
Speaker 1: and they didn't lose their work. Here in the United
Speaker 1: States of America, ten million people got laid off. People
Speaker 1: were sent home. That's why they had to put the
Speaker 1: extra help for people that want unemployment. I think in
Speaker 1: the United States we're trying to shift towards making sure
Speaker 1: that we're treating people failing and creating good opportunities for
Speaker 1: those folks that they're not concerned about that particular job
Speaker 1: that if they lose that job, their life is over.
Speaker 1: And I think that we have to do a better
Speaker 1: job of scaling people up and training people up. We're
Speaker 1: looking at the apprentice model quite honestly that Switzerland has
Speaker 1: and and Denmark has, all of these countries have. You know,
Speaker 1: they're more into apprenticeships and we are. We're more into
Speaker 1: job training and then you get thrown into the job
Speaker 1: and you better do it. If you don't do it,
Speaker 1: you don't work there. You know, having these apprenticeships and
Speaker 1: changing that mindset. So we're catching young people earlier. Two
Speaker 1: kids that don't go to college. When they graduate high
Speaker 1: school and don't go to college, they might get a
Speaker 1: job at a fast food restaurant and some place like that. No,
Speaker 1: we need to get those folks, those young people, into
Speaker 1: apprenticeships to get into good paying jobs moving forward. Also,
Speaker 1: you know, in America, we tend to be get o
Speaker 1: a two weeks vacation, and we we work fifty two
Speaker 1: fifty weeks a year, we get the two weeks vacation.
Speaker 1: If you go to another country in the world, European country,
Speaker 1: they got five six, seven weeks holiday and they go
Speaker 1: out and they enjoy themselves and the company is a
Speaker 1: still successful and productive. So I think that I think
Speaker 1: that hopefully some of these companies that are making big
Speaker 1: money realizing that, you know, you need to spend some
Speaker 1: of that on your employees, because if you have good
Speaker 1: employees and strong employees and happy employees, it will benefit
Speaker 1: the company overall. It's as good talking to you who
Speaker 1: I let to go there? Before I let go, I
Speaker 1: would love to know your opinion on this. Gen Z
Speaker 1: has been leading the charge in re establishing what work
Speaker 1: should be and how people should think about it in
Speaker 1: their lives, you know, And one of the one of
Speaker 1: the terms that's become quite buzzy now is quiet quitting.
Speaker 1: People say I only need to work as much as
Speaker 1: I need to work to get my salary. For too long,
Speaker 1: people in America have gone like, I work over to
Speaker 1: I'm the last one in the office, I don't sleep.
Speaker 1: My family hates me. People are proud of that. And
Speaker 1: now gen Z is saying, no, actually, I will work
Speaker 1: for what I am paid for and then I will
Speaker 1: go and I will live my life. Many companies are
Speaker 1: saying this is the worst thing that could happen. Where
Speaker 1: do you stand on this? As the secretary of Let
Speaker 1: me just say, the first time I as asked the
Speaker 1: question about about quiet quitting, I really had. I thought
Speaker 1: it was people like quitting and leaving. So I gave,
Speaker 1: I gave an answer and it was not I look
Speaker 1: like a complete moron and it but and then I
Speaker 1: looked at what it was after the fact, Um, you
Speaker 1: know again, that goes back to I think it goes
Speaker 1: back to employers understanding about how they need to know
Speaker 1: their workforce and need to have conversations with their workforce
Speaker 1: and need to make sure that it workforce is understands
Speaker 1: what the mission is and also is treated failing. And
Speaker 1: I think that that that has to happen when when
Speaker 1: I became the mayor Boston. You know, the biggest group
Speaker 1: of folks that I brought in was millennials, and millennials
Speaker 1: quite honestly, in the beginning, for we jump from job
Speaker 1: to job, the job here for ten minutes to go
Speaker 1: to new job after that, and it took me some
Speaker 1: time to sit down and talk about what what is
Speaker 1: it exactly that we can do here in the city
Speaker 1: of Boston as a as a city to keep you
Speaker 1: working in the workforce. And I think having those conversations
Speaker 1: with your employees is so important for a corporation or
Speaker 1: even for government somebody like me, myself or other elected officials,
Speaker 1: we need to have those conversations because the quiet quitting piece. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, you're expecting when you hire somebody to work
Speaker 1: hard and do the right thing. But if they're not
Speaker 1: and there's a reason for it, let's let's get to
Speaker 1: the heart of what. What the what the what the
Speaker 1: reason is right? Thank you so much for Johnny, Thank you.
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