Labor Unions Divided Over Data Center Construction, AI Use

The nationwide construction of data centers to power artificial intelligence is exposing a tension within organized labor on how the new technology will affect their jobs.

The AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest federation of labor unions, is heading toward a potential inflection point as it grapples with some union members who see data centers and the advent of AI as a necessity for job growth while others view it as anti-worker technology that will one day take over their jobs.

The North America’s Building Trades Unions, one of the AFL-CIO’s largest members, has been one of the most vocal champions of data centers that its leaders say will provide jobs.

“These aren’t the only things that are being built in the United States or Canada right now, but this is where a lot of the action is,” said Mike Monroe, chief of staff at NABTU, which represents more than 3 million building trade workers in the US and Canada.

Meanwhile, about a half-dozen union leaders affiliated with the AFL-CIO stood with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in April when he called on Congress to pass a moratorium on data center construction until lawmakers passed guardrails on artificial intelligence in the workplace. But only two of the leaders at the event—from National Nurses United and the Association of Flight Attendants—explicitly said they supported a slowdown.

“In order to move forward in a way that is going to be responsible and effective and safe, we got to slow down and have some regulation in place,” Sara Nelson, president of the flight attendant’s union, said in an interview with Bloomberg Law. Nelson said the group wants to ensure regulations are in place to avoid workers being harmed by artificial intelligence such as employers using the technology to monitor employees or using it to displace them.

The AFA has not formally endorsed Sanders’ moratorium unlike the nurse’s union, which has officially signed on to the legislation.

Industry observers say such division within the AFL-CIO members isn’t unprecedented. But data center construction has emerged as a challenge that could ultimately decide the group’s fate as it works to attract members at a time when labor unions are seeing membership numbers stagnate.

“The AFL-CIO kind of always has this tension because the unions have very different interests,” said Anne Lofaso, a law professor at the University of Cincinnati and a former National Labor Relations Board attorney. “But this truly is existential. This is about jobs.”

Construction Unions

The dispute reflects the wave of pushback over the impact of the more than 4,000 data centers across the country used to power AI.

Data center construction is becoming an increasingly prominent part of construction unions’ business models as they rely on partnerships with companies to keep their members employed and account for 2.3% of all US construction spending, according to a June report from the US Census Bureau.

Total private sector spending on data center construction stood at $50 billion in April 2026, surpassing public sector spending on transportation infrastructure, according to the report.

NABTU has formed partnerships with Big Tech firms like OpenAI and Microsoft to build facilities and train workers.

Construction union members “are counting on the union to connect them to jobs if there’s no construction, they’re basically on unemployment until their unemployment runs out,” said Todd Vachon, director of the Labor Education Action Research Network at Rutgers University.

Sean McGarvey, president of the North Americas Building Trade Union, speaks during BlackRock’s 2026 Infrastructure Summit in Washington, DC.

Photographer: Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg

Construction unions also often provide companies with critical political support in local communities, especially where data center construction remains unpopular, labor observers said. That can include drumming up support at city council meetings or meeting with local lawmakers to ensure projects are approved.

“The totality of our value proposition is they know that we’re best in class in delivering craft, but also how you’re engaging the community matters,” Monroe said. “It’s helpful to have us in the room.”

Calls for a Moratorium

The AFL-CIO represents nearly 15 million workers making up 65 various unions. Union leaders have cited fears over mass layoffs and use of surveillance technology—which critics say companies use to aggressively monitor employee productivity—as chief concerns.

While the leaders agree that AI needs to be regulated to protect workers, the role of data centers could expose a potential fault line as industries advocate for different worker concerns.

“Hospital executives are moving at breakneck speed to implement untested, unregulated AI in our profession. They’re using it to push unsafe staffing levels, replace nurses’ clinical judgment, remote patient monitoring for worker surveillance,” Jamie Brown, co-president of National Nurses United, said during Sanders’ April press conference. “The unchecked explosion of AI data centers is a public health crisis, an environmental crisis, and a workers’ rights crisis.”

Last month the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, an affiliate of the building trades union with about 900,000 members sent out a memo urging members to lobby Congress against a data center moratorium.

“The IBEW is calling on all members to mobilize now and urge their members of Congress to oppose any bills that impose bans on data center construction and to instead support strong labor standards for these projects,” the memo said. “Such bans would eliminate critical opportunities for union workers and stunt much-needed economic growth in communities across the country.” A spokesperson declined to comment further.

Growing Divide

The issue is a potential headache for the AFL-CIO, which must manage the competing interests within its membership. About 11% of total construction workers were unionized in 2025 compared to 5.9% of other private sector workers, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

While the labor federation has weathered similar issues in the past—such as tension between coal miners and construction workers and unions over the impact of climate change—the data center issue hits much closer to the future of a union’s job, labor observers said.

“Climate change was also a complicated situation, but after a number of years, the AFL-CIO found a way to navigate it,” Vachon said. “But it doesn’t feel as direct as this does because the actual technology is the threat.”

The AFL-CIO didn’t respond to multiple interview requests for this article. But when asked about the divide during an event at the National Press Club in April, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler described a careful balance in managing the competing interests of her members.

“I think it’s being presented as a false choice because often the debate tries to pit workers in the environment against each other or workers in community against each other when in fact we can have both the policies that benefit both,” she said.

During its 30th convention in Minneapolis last week, the AFL-CIO adopted a resolution demanding that data center construction be built with union labor and that tech companies pay their share of energy and water costs. The resolution also called for additional guardrails for AI in the workplace including intellectual property protections and transparency initiatives for when the technology was used in hiring.

The AFA’s Nelson said that the resolution fell short in addressing the concerns labor unions have with AI.

“We need to get all of the unions in one room to talk about the different ways that this is affecting their sectors,” she said."We have to fundamentally shift our thinking and not just see this as something that we need to react to or have labor provisions for, but how are we going to build this from the ground up that is human-centered.”

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers which represents nearly 2 million members, told reporters last month that the AFT didn’t support a moratorium—despite an endorsement from its affiliate the American Association of University Professors.

“I stood with Bernie Sanders the day he called for the moratorium. We did not call for the moratorium. We are calling for protections and safeguards,” Weingarten said. “At this point, we are deferring to the AFL-CIO within our big labor family.”