Building trades unions have emerged as unexpected powerhouses in shaping America's artificial intelligence infrastructure, becoming key allies of tech giants while simultaneously addressing community concerns that executives often ignore. As data centers proliferate across the country to power AI systems, unionized workers are experiencing unprecedented demand, with some unions reporting apprentice classes doubling in size and training centers undergoing major expansions.

How Are Unions Reshaping the Data Center Development Conversation?

Rather than simply opposing data center projects like some community groups, unions have taken a pragmatic approach: they acknowledge legitimate concerns about energy consumption, water usage, and quality-of-life impacts, then negotiate directly with tech companies and local governments for improvements and community benefits. This strategy has proven remarkably effective at moving projects forward while giving communities a seat at the negotiating table.

• Direct Community Engagement: Union representatives attend packed municipal council meetings and speak directly to concerns about energy shortages, rising utility bills, and environmental impacts, often being the only voices in the room willing to engage substantively with opposition rather than dismiss it.
• Negotiated Benefits: Unions encourage communities to ask tech companies for specific concessions, such as improvements to project designs or millions of dollars in funding for local schools and infrastructure, rather than accepting projects as-is.
• Workforce Development: Unions are aggressively recruiting and training apprentices to meet explosive demand, with some reporting record membership levels and training centers undergoing expansions to accommodate growth.

Rob Bair, president of the Pennsylvania Building and Construction Trades Council, explained the union philosophy: "When people say, you know, 'data centers are the root of all evil,' we're just saying, 'look, they do create a hell of a lot of construction jobs, which we live and work in your communities.' Instead of 'being just a blunt no,' communities should figure out what they need and ask the tech companies for it".

What's Driving Record Growth in Union Membership?

The scale of data center construction is staggering. Data centers now consume at least 40 percent of work hours for members of the Columbus-Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council, and at least 50 percent for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 26 in metropolitan Washington, D.C. . The umbrella organization North America's Building Trades Unions reported hitting a record number of members and apprentices in 2025, a growth trajectory that union leaders compare to the construction boom of the 1950s.

The Boilermakers Local 154, whose members watched power plants shut down across southwestern Pennsylvania, exemplifies this transformation. The union went from recruiting zero apprentices for four consecutive years to assembling a class of over 200 apprentices, and union officials say they need even more workers to meet demand. This represents not just job creation, but a reversal of decades-long decline in traditional manufacturing and energy infrastructure regions.

The growth extends beyond construction itself. Data centers' voracious energy needs are driving a power plant construction boom, creating additional work for union members who build and maintain boilers, ductwork, pipelines, and other power infrastructure. This one-two punch of data center construction plus power generation expansion is delivering unprecedented opportunity to unions whose membership had been declining for years.

How Are Tech Giants and Unions Aligning on Workforce Development?

Tech companies recognize they need hundreds of thousands of skilled workers to build and maintain their infrastructure. Major technology firms are investing tens of millions of dollars in training programs and partnerships with unions. Google stated that the majority of labor used to build its data centers is unionized and pointed to a $10 million grant to a union-backed electricians training program designed to expand the electrician workforce pipeline by 70 percent.

"Across the country, highly skilled union construction workers are laying the foundation for the AI economy," said Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, in a joint statement with North America's Building Trades Unions.

Sam Altman, Co-founder and CEO of OpenAI

Mark McManus, general president of the United Association of Union Plumbers and Pipefitters, acknowledged the unusual nature of organized labor partnering with the world's richest companies. However, he noted that unions have negotiated strong relationships with tech firms and are hitting all-time highs in membership. Based on an internal survey, his union has members working on over 90 percent of data center projects in the United States, a market share that far exceeds their presence in most other industries.

What Political Role Are Unions Playing in Data Center Debates?

Unions have become visible political forces in statehouses and municipal governments, often aligning with traditional Republican pro-business constituencies while forcing Democrats to choose between supporting unions and supporting progressive activists who want stricter data center regulations. In statehouses, unions have actively worked against proposals that would restrict data center development, including Maine's since-vetoed proposal for a statewide data center moratorium and standards proposed in Illinois that would require data centers to supply their own energy.

Pennsylvania state Senator Katie Muth noted the political challenge: "The unions don't want to promote anything that would impede data center development," she stated, explaining that it has been difficult to collect support from fellow Democrats for her legislation to regulate data centers when it is competing with union-backed legislation that she views as weaker.

Union representatives have made their presence felt at packed council meetings across the country, from St. Louis to Spring City, Pennsylvania. Sometimes, union members are the only voices speaking in favor of projects, positioning themselves as pragmatic advocates for economic development and job creation in communities that have experienced industrial decline.

How Do Unions Justify Their Partnership With Tech Giants?

Union leaders argue that their choice to support data center development is pragmatic rather than ideological. McManus stated: "If we chose as a union to have a moratorium on building the data centers because we didn't believe it was right for America, the data centers would still be getting built. They're not stopping because of organized labor". In other words, unions view their involvement as a way to ensure their members benefit from inevitable development rather than being excluded from it.

National unions have successfully negotiated labor agreements on major projects, including an Oracle and OpenAI Stargate campus in Michigan and the "Project Blue" data center campus in Arizona, with more agreements in development. When Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro announced that Amazon would spend $20 billion on two data center projects in eastern Pennsylvania, union leaders stood alongside the governor and Amazon executives, framing the development as a shared accomplishment.

The alignment between unions and tech companies represents a significant shift in how major infrastructure projects are developed in the United States. Rather than the traditional adversarial relationship between labor and capital, unions and tech firms are finding common ground on data center expansion, even as community groups, environmental advocates, and some elected officials raise concerns about energy consumption, water usage, and grid reliability.