Building trades unions emerge as a key ally of tech giants in push for AI data centers

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Construction unions — long considered the voice of American workers — are now intertwined with the world’s richest companies as they create America’s artificial intelligence economy.

Union workers are employed on a large number of massive data center projects and are scrambling to recruit new apprentices to meet the explosive demand.

They have also become allies of tech giants and pro-technology government officials, echoing the narrative that the United States is engaged in a critical national security race with China for AI superiority.

Unions are a visible force in helping counter fierce opposition within communities and hostile legislation from Congress and legislatures, often aligning with traditional pro-business Republican constituencies and forcing Democrats to choose between them and progressives who want to take a harder line.

Unions have responded aggressively to complaints about data centers in a way that executives of tech giants and development companies rarely do, unafraid to squarely confront concerns about energy and water shortages, rising electricity and water bills, or objections to noise and quality of life.

“When people say, you know, ‘data centers are the root of all evil,’ we just say ‘look, they create an awful lot of construction jobs, that we live and work in your communities,'” said Rob Bair, president of the Pennsylvania Building and Construction Trades Council.

Instead of “just saying no,” Bair said, communities should figure out what they need and ask for it from tech companies — like improvements to project plans or millions of dollars for local schools. “If you don’t ask, you’ll never get,” he said.

With data center construction accelerating, unions are expanding their training centers and seeing their ranks grow faster than many union leaders have ever seen.

Unions in a number of states are reporting skyrocketing work hours, a doubling of apprentice class sizes and an expansion of training centers in anticipation of the coming increase in work.

Data centers consume at least 40% of the work hours worked by members of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Columbus-Central Ohio, senior official Dorsey Hager estimated. That’s at least 50 percent for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 26 in the Washington, D.C. metro area, said spokesman Don Slaiman.

The umbrella organization of North America’s building trades unions says it has reached record numbers of members and apprentices in 2025.

The organization’s president, Sean McGarvey, compared it to the expansion of the construction trades in the 1950s. He attributes the current growth to data centers, power plants and former President Joe Biden’s legislation that subsidized the construction of semiconductor and electric vehicle battery factories, energy efficiency projects and transmission grid improvements.

The voracious energy needs of data centers are sparking a boom in power plant construction and giving a boost to unions whose members also build and maintain boilers, ducts, pipelines and other electrical infrastructure.

Boilermakers Local 154, whose members watched power plants close in southwest Pennsylvania, went from hiring zero apprentices in four years to building a class of more than 200 — and they need more, said union official Shawn Steffee.

For their part, tech giants say they need to train hundreds of thousands more workers in skilled trades. They spend tens of millions of dollars on training programs, including partnerships with the unions they hire to build their multi-billion dollar projects.

“Across the country, highly skilled unionized construction workers are laying the foundation for the AI ​​economy,” said Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, in a joint statement in March with McGarvey’s organization.

Google said the majority of the labor used to build its data centers is unionized and pointed to a $10 million grant to a union-backed electrician training program that it said would help expand the electrician labor pool by 70%.

Mark McManus, general president of the United Association of Union Plumbers and Pipefitters, whose members work on pipelines, data centers and power plants, acknowledged criticism that unions associate with the world’s richest and most powerful companies.

But he dismissed it as unrealistic.

“If we chose as a union to put a moratorium on data center construction because we don’t think it’s a good thing for America, data centers would still be built,” McManus said. “They’re not stopping because of the labor movement.”

His union maintains close relationships with technology companies, reaching record membership numbers and, according to an internal survey, has members working on more than 90% of data center projects in the United States.

“That’s a market share we don’t have in a lot of other industries,” McManus said. “So it’s pretty close and dear to us.”

It’s difficult to determine exactly how many data center projects involve unions. A survey conducted by the Associated General Contractors of America late last year suggested that the makeup of the data center construction workforce likely reflects the makeup of commercial construction, which is about a third union, an AGC spokesperson said.

National unions have negotiated labor agreements on major projects, including an Oracle and OpenAI Stargate campus in Michigan and the “Project Blue” data center campus in Arizona, and more are in the works.

When Gov. Josh Shapiro joined Amazon executives to announce that the tech giant would spend $20 billion on two data center projects in eastern Pennsylvania, Bair supported them.

“It’s really unique, what we’re building here in this Commonwealth. People coming together with a common goal to get things done,” Shapiro said.

In the states, unions opposed Maine’s proposal, which has since been vetoed, for a statewide data center moratorium; proposed standards in Illinois, including requiring data centers to provide their own power; and the end of Virginia’s sales tax holiday, which helped make it the largest data center destination in the world.

Pennsylvania state Sen. Katie Muth said it’s difficult to gain support from her Democratic colleagues for her legislation to regulate data centers, while it competes with union-backed legislation that she views as weaker.

“Unions don’t want to promote anything that might hinder the development of data centers,” Muth said.

Union representatives made their presence felt at packed council meetings at St. Louis municipal buildings in Spring City, Pennsylvania.

Sometimes it’s not in a good way.

Speaking to the Joliet, Illinois, city council, Alicia Morales complained that union members — who sat in the front row with “vote yes for union jobs” signs — were disrespectful and “intimidated a lot of people” by entering the meeting.

Sometimes, in a crowded municipal room, union representatives are the only ones to speak in favor of a project.

“I just want to congratulate you, thank you for being the adults in the room,” Chuck Curry, president of Ironworkers Local 395, told city council members in Hobart, Indiana, during a January meeting at an Amazon data center. “Knowing the tax structure, knowing the business, which most people here don’t know.”

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