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Leadership1 distinct publisher3 min readPublished
The IBEW and three building trades organizations have lined up behind data center construction, but towns are the ones issuing the vetoes, so a developer's problem is now assembling allies rather than negotiating abatements.
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The most useful line in any of these statements is North America's Building Trades Unions president Sean McGarvey praising Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro for setting guardrails on data center developers without pausing or banning them, which McGarvey contrasted with "the blanket moratoriums imposed in other states" [6]. Read as a bargaining position, that is a request for enforceable standards as the price of labor's political cover, and the Laborers' International Union of North America, representing over 500,000 construction workers, endorsed the same approach a day later [7]. Abatements are negotiated with a county; standards are written by a state, and it is the standards that arrive with an organized constituency attached.
Counting the side that has declared itself is harder than it looks. The IBEW's 901,000 members [1], LIUNA's 500,000-plus [7] and the United Association's roughly 407,000 plumbers and pipefitters [8] sum to about 1.8 million [1]. NABTU's own figure of more than 3 million spans the United States and Canada [5], so the two cannot be stacked into a national total without an overlap figure the source does not supply. Four organizations with membership in the millions have taken a public position, and no comparable count exists for the other side.
The wage case is the strongest part of the pro-construction argument because it is specific. Don Slaiman of IBEW Local 26 wrote in a New York Times op-ed that apprentices start near $28 an hour and experienced electricians earn $62 an hour plus another $30 in benefits [9], which is $92 an hour of total compensation [2], or roughly $191,000 a year at 2,080 hours [3]. Business Insider's own parenthetical marks the limit: the job creation AI companies promote runs "at least during the construction phase" [11]. A community weighing that is comparing a payroll with an end date against grid, noise and environmental objections that Business Insider says polling shows a public majority already holds [12].
A skeptic would say the building trades back anything with a crane on it, and that a split along craft lines is self-interest reporting itself. The venue is what makes it more than that. The IBEW handed members a digital toolkit with a sample letter and social media instructions aimed at Congress [2], pitched at the same level as the nationwide moratorium sought by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders [10]. Both sides are treating a permitting question as federal legislation, which is what happens when the local scoreboard is running against you.
What the supplied record does not do is name the other side. Business Insider reports that unions whose members see AI as a threat to their jobs have taken the opposite stance, and that the divide tracks the kind of worker a union represents [4], but it names none of them in the material we have and gives no membership figures. Until that arrives, the weight of the split is unmeasured, and coalition math rests on one confirmed proposition: the trades will defend a project that comes with written standards, and their defense is loudest before the concrete is poured. This quarter that makes standards the negotiation; the quarter after the ribbon-cutting, it leaves the question of who speaks for the site once the construction payroll ends.
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
In April, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers told its 901,000 members to urge members of Congress to oppose any bills that would ban data center construction.
The IBEW provided members with a digital toolkit that included a sample letter to send to lawmakers and instructions for social media posts.
The IBEW said bans "would eliminate critical opportunities for union workers and stunt much-needed economic growth in communities across the country," and that responsibly built data centers mean high-quality union jobs, tax revenue and long-term economic development.
Don Slaiman, political coordinator of IBEW Local 26 covering DC, Maryland and Virginia, wrote in a New York Times op-ed that apprentices' starting pay is around $28 an hour and experienced electricians earn $62 an hour plus another $30 an hour in benefits.
Business Insider reports the divide among unions over AI data centers largely depends on the kinds of workers they represent: unions representing electricians, plumbers and construction workers back the projects, while unions representing workers who see AI as a threat to their jobs have taken the opposite stance.
North America's Building Trades Unions represents over 3 million workers across the US and Canada, and its president Sean McGarvey called AI data centers "critical infrastructure that underpin America's digital economy, data security, and national security."
Distinct publishers with included, body-backed reporting in this cluster.
businessinsider.com
1 article · August 31, 2026
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Evidence-backed comparisons of source perspectives and observed adoption signals. Read the methodology
Which Builder, Operator, and Investor concerns the observed source mix emphasized—not a truth score.
Evidence, demonstrated adoption, hype gap, incentives, and confidence are assessed independently, each on its own current evidence. How these are measured.
On-record quotes, one narrator
Nearly everything traceable here is a party speaking for itself, collected by a single outlet: the IBEW's toolkit language, NABTU's and the Laborers' press releases, United Association's own fact sheet, Slaiman's signed op-ed in The New York Times. Those are the easy facts. The two assertions doing the most persuasive work are the weakest sourced — the polling that establishes majority public opposition names no pollster, and the high six-figure electricians come with no employer, hours or sample behind them.
Vetoes counted, wins not
The restriction side of this has already hardened into policy you can count: fourteen North Carolina jurisdictions, New York first at state level in July, Texas tightening after backlash. The union side is still letters, toolkits and press releases — real organizing, but with no evidence yet of a permit granted because the trades showed up. Pennsylvania is the one place the reporting can point to where guardrails replaced a pause, and even there the outcome for any specific project goes unmeasured.
Reporting cooler than its sources
Business Insider is more disciplined than the people it quotes: the parenthetical limiting job creation to the construction phase quietly punctures the permanent-employment story both the unions and the AI companies prefer. What passes without challenge is the escalation of language — data centers as national security infrastructure, as the best blue-collar opportunity in generations — and one anonymous high earner standing in for a wage distribution nobody publishes.
Everyone quoted is paid by the outcome
Dues or votes ride on every position in this story. Electricians, laborers and pipefitters bill hours on these builds; unions whose members fear automation want time to legislate; two governors are managing angry constituents; AI companies dangle tax revenue to keep permits moving. To Business Insider's credit the piece is organized around exactly that alignment, so the interests are visible rather than laundered — but no disinterested voice appears anywhere in it.
Positions solid, consequences unknown
Who said what is unlikely to be wrong — press releases, a signed op-ed, membership counts the unions publish themselves. Confidence falls away at the edges: a single outlet, a single late-August snapshot, and none of the measures that would show whether the coalition strategy works. Permits granted, projects abandoned, permanent headcount: absent.