Ex-NYC mayor Bill de Blasio lobbying for Joe Biden to make him Labor secretary
Watch out, America!
Bill de Blasio still wants to do to the rest of the country what he did to the city — but this time as a member of President Biden’s Cabinet, The Post has learned.
The widely reviled former mayor and failed Democratic presidential contender is lobbying to succeed Labor Secretary Martin Walsh, a source familiar with the matter said Thursday.
“The mayor has had his eye on the Biden administration for a long time and now he sees an opening and he’s making his case for labor secretary to the White House,” said the source, who has close ties to the West Wing.
“He’s calling friends in the Biden administration to help make his case and push his candidacy.”
Walsh, a former mayor of Boston, is reportedly planning to resign within days to run the NHL Players’ Association.
Under federal law, the job of labor secretary involves ensuring “the welfare of the wage earners of the United States, to improve their working conditions and to advance their opportunities for profitable employment.”
During de Blasio’s eight years as mayor, the Big Apple’s municipal workforce ballooned from 297,349 in June 2014 to a record high of 326,739 in June 2019.
As of June 30, 2022 — six months after he left office — the number had declined to 304,095, due to a hiring freeze and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
De Blasio, 61, also struck deals with the city’s labor unions that included a retroactive pact that gave the nearly 100,000 members of District Council 37 annual raises of 2%, 2.25% and 3%.
The combined effects of his actions pushed total payroll spending from $41 billion to $53.4 billion, a 30% increase.
Veteran Democratic political consultant Hank Sheinkopf said de Blasio “enjoyed a very good relationship with labor unions…but it didn’t give him peace because he was a bad manager.”
“The Republican argument against him is: He was too pro-labor and his contract-negotiation style is costing the tens of billions of dollars right now,” Sheinkopf said. “The bad aroma in the post-de Blasio years could be enough to toss him over the side.”
The president of the independent Citizens Budget Commission, Andrew Rein, also said de Blasio “missed the opportunity to use labor negotiations to improve how the city operates to become more efficient and save money.”
De Blasio faces competition from former congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, who in November was ousted from his seat in Congress by Republican Mike Lawler.
Maloney’s humiliating loss came while he was chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and it was among the defeats that gave Republicans control of the House.
But Maloney is being backed by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), with the powerful former two-time House speaker calling the White House and labor leaders to support him, NBC News reported Thursday, citing sources with knowledge of her actions.
De Blasio’s most recent job was as a resident fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School Institute of Politics, where he was confronted by one of his students for trying to end the test for admission to the city’s elite high schools, The Post revealed in November.
“I’m a first-generation college student,” the student said during a classroom Q&A session. “My parents are immigrants. I took this standardized test to get into a magnet school. It’s the only reason I’m here at Harvard.”
De Blasio didn’t immediately return a request for comment.