McLean County residents have shared their opposition to hyperscale data centers, and they were a major issue in the recent midterm elections. But one group in particular stands to gain from their construction: labor unions.
In a report from the Illinois Economic Police Institute, a group which advocates for "data center investments while protecting the interests of residents," 13 data center projects in the state between 2020 and 2021 created more than 8,000 construction jobs on top of millions of dollars each year in local and state tax revenue.
The report does not specify how many of those were union jobs.
Matt Strupp is the president and membership development director for Bloomington's chapter of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers [IBEW]. He represents 420 electrical workers.
Strupp said if certain conditions were met, the IBEW would support the building of a hyperscale data center in McLean County.
"We want data centers to be built transparent. We want them to have to abide by regulations, whether, water consumption, energy consumption, noise pollution, light or sound pollution. We want all of that," he said.
"We'd be supportive as long as they were doing what they were supposed to be doing with the community."
Ronnie Paul is the business manager for the Bloomington chapter of the Laborers' International Union of North America [LiUNA]. He represents approximately 800 members, with 600 employees and 200 retirees.
"Our opinion on data centers is there probably needs to be regulations," Paul said. “And if the regulations are met, and the project goes through, we just want to make sure that they're built with local labor."
Paul said he'd be in favor of regulations around the water and power sources the data center would use.
"We would support any project that's done responsibly and that hires and puts our members to work" Paul said.
Neither Paul nor Strupp say they are aware of any hyperscale data center project under consideration in McLean County at this time.
Bloomington and Normal both have temporary moratoriums in place for data center projects. And McLean County government has adopted some of the most restrictive zoning rules for data centers in the state.
Strupp said he's been preparing for data center labor demands for years, since at least 2015 when he worked on the construction of one in West Des Moines, Iowa.
"We were told years ago that they're probably going to be on our doorstep, before the whole moratorium thing," Strupp said.
Paul said no workers from LiUNA in Bloomington have gotten work for a data center.
Strupp said the IBEW has been increasing apprenticeship enrollment in anticipation of a project that could need more manpower than it could supply.
He said data center developers do not always communicate with trade unions in advance, before they request "a lot of manpower" that can't always be provided on quick notice.
It's not that union members would need to pick up new skills in a hurry to contribute to a data center project. The work is similar to what they do in other settings right now.
"Building a data center is no different than building a school," Paul said. "You're gonna dig footings. You're gonna grade out the land."
"It's pretty much gonna be the same as what those guys are doing out at Rivian."
It's more about the demand of laborers and how it compares to the supply, Strupp said.
"If one of these hyperscales came here, it would be the largest, probably, construction project in the history of this county by far," Strupp said.
How it would work
Strupp said any jobs they get related to building data centers would be offered to local labor union members first. If demand outpaced supply of labor, then other IBEW members from out of state would be offered the work.
Paul said LiUNA would take a similar approach, offering the work to the Bloomington chapter first, before expanding to chapters in Peoria, Champaign, Decatur and Roanoke.
A career of temporary jobs
Strupp said he's familiar with objections that data center construction jobs are only short-term.
"They're very good jobs, of course. I know one of the big knocks are they're temporary jobs, but we look at it as, my career is made up of a series of temporary jobs," he said.
"Every day we go to work, we're working ourselves out of a job," Paul said.
He said in the past, as when unions built the Diamond Star plant that then became Mitsubishi, and then Rivian, jobs lasted a lot longer. He wasn't around for the Diamond Star project but understands it lasted around 10 years. Paul said new technology and efficiencies mean it just does not take as long to construct new buildings as it used to.
"Our members go from one project to the next, and we don't like hearing the term 'short-term jobs' because when you string them all together, you can build a career," said Paul.
Paul uses two Bloomington LiUNA members as an example. He said they spent about a year and a half working on concrete pouring out at the Normal Rivian plant. Now, they are working at the old State Farm building downtown renovating it to hold restaurants, apartments and retail spaces. When that project ends, they'll move onto the next one.
That’s what happened for Local 32 laborers in DeKalb after the Meta Data Center was built there, the same union to which Paul belongs to but a different chapter.
Strupp said union laborer jobs are "very lucrative" overall and there is strong demand for their skills in the labor market right now, even without data centers.
Paul said the community should consider the tax revenue data centers could generate, despite the perceived unpopularity.
"They're gonna be a new tax base that we don't have," he said. "And with aging schools in the area, especially surrounding area, and with a limited tax base, this would be a good way to fund those kind of much needed upgrades."
According to the Illinois Economic Policy Institute, every $1 billion invested in a data center will create 688 skilled construction jobs and 50 permanent, full-time equivalent jobs once operational.
Future data centers over the next decade in the state are estimated to create as many as 39,000 jobs for skilled tradespeople with an average salary of $116,500 per year. Also, the institute estimates a gross total of 32,000 supply chain jobs and another 42,000 at local businesses from consumer spending related to the projects.
‘They’re not workplaces’
Don Carlson is the executive director of Illinois People’s Action [IPA], a grassroots advocacy organization rallying against environmental issues including data centers.
Carlson said if the conversation centers on unions taking advantage of job opportunities, like Strupp and Paul said they would be interested in doing, the focus is lost. His focus is data centers and the problems they present to communities.
He sees others who promote good, long-term jobs from data centers, and doesn’t find it convincing.
“Well, data centers are really just buildings that are full of machines, and they’re not workplaces,” he said. “So, temporary crews do build them, and a few dozen people run them, but our community pays the price in the long-term difficulties after the construction jobs leave.”
While Ronnie Paul with LiUNA said any and all local labor interested in the project would be able to take advantage, that is not a guarantee without something like a project labor agreement [PLA], a pre-hire agreement that one or more unions negotiates for a project.
Without the contract to use Central Illinois-based workers, a data center would technically be able to draw in cheaper work from anywhere.
“Those agreements between local unions or unions — and data center constructors companies, corporations — every one that we’ve been able to look at around the country also includes some pretty dramatic tax benefits for the corporation,” said Carlson.
“Because what they do is they have to add all of the costs together when they make the economic decision to build or not, and labor is a significant cost of that …”
But, in Carlson’s opinion, data centers are chasing tax incentives above all else and they always seem to get them. Gov. JB Pritzker did call off state tax incentives in June of this year.
Project labor agreements are addressed among IPA’s 24-point critique of the City of Bloomington’s draft data center regulations. It is a list Carlson said is intended to demonstrate why a ban of data centers is necessary, not to improve the regulations.
Pam Reece, Normal city manager, told WGLT last month, it remains to be seen whether the town would seek to include a PLA in its data center regulations.
“Currently, the project labor agreements that that we've adopted in terms of our ordinance pertain to municipal projects. So again, those are those questions are very much in the details that we're not at yet in terms of any zoning regulations pertaining to data center uses,” she said.
Normal and City of Bloomington are still considering regulations of their own for data centers. McLean County passed strict zoning laws of its own for the facilities months ago.
The POWER Act, Illinois' statewide attempt at data center regulation, failed to pass during the spring session. It could be brought up in the upcoming fall veto session.
Carlson warned the cons will outweigh the pros.
“Well, the community is left with the cost and the harm of the data center after it’s constructed for a decade or so, and, yes, there are construction jobs that are envisioned with data centers, but those are for a year or two and they’re temporary,” Carlson said. “I don’t think anyone has argued that there are going to be significant numbers of technical, high-skilled workers in these data centers after they’ve been constructed.”
Some are preparing anyway
A persisting narrative around data center jobs continues to be the lack of opportunities available after the facility is built, but a community college in Mississippi is operating off of the assumption that there will be — by training them for it.
Meridian Community College [MCC] in Meridian, Miss. is on the eastern side of the Gulf coast state, about an hour-and-a-half away from Jackson, the state capital.
Tom Huebner is president of MCC, home to a new data center pathway program.
“It’s a 15-week program and [students] are slotted to graduate in December, and then we’ll go through the interview processes and hopefully [they'll] be employed starting in January,” he said.
MCC’s program, a mechanical, electrical and information technology [MEI] course, is in its first semester at the college. The program comes from a partnership with Compass Data Centers, which has a data center campus in the city.
The goal of the program is simple: to provide prospective employees with the skills necessary to fill Compass’ need for technicians and repairmen to fix and maintain its facilities.
“We have strong programs in electrical tech and in machining and industrial maintenance … hydraulics, pneumatics, mechanical, electrical, some robotics training, cabling, IT-related [and] network-related skills and talents, HVAC-related programming,” he said.
Paul and Strupp of the Central Illinois-based unions said the skills needed are not really a problem for them, but the demand is what they are watching out for. Huebner and his staff found a similar conclusion in researching their program.
After visiting an up-and-running MEI program at Texas State Technical College in North Texas, Huebner and his staff realized nothing new needed to come to the college for their program’s creation.
At Meridian, the MEI Pathway Program is not for any college credit. Right now, it is set up for students to take the 15-weeks and immediately turn around for a possible career.
“For us, it also meant we needed to time the beginning of the program to correspond nicely with when their first jobs would be, when [Compass] would need to hire their first round of people. And we made sure that we timed our program to coincide with that,” he said.
“We also wanted to make sure that we had a very strong relationship in terms of incentives and partnership with, in this case, Compass, and they were more than happy to do that.”
In fact, Compass provided full scholarships to each of the 15 inaugural students in the program worth about $35,000. On top of that, the developer does not promise a job for the graduates but does promise each a job interview after graduation.
Huebner said the program will continue to diversify the community of Meridian and specifically rise to meet the growing job sector in tech.
He said he does not see the type of tech needed for data centers going away soon.
“Trying to figure out how to make it work for our communities is positive and where there are win-wins, and we’re always searching for that.”
Heartland Community College
WGLT asked Heartland Community College about how its own job and workforce development programs and goals might fit into the possibility of something like an MEI program of its own for data centers.
Heartland has spent considerable time expanding its career and technology offerings in recent years, including EV labs from a 2022 partnership with Rivian and a new agriculture complex in 2024.
Adam Campbell, dean of career and technical education, said in an email that no employer has identified a need for such a program.
“Heartland already offers coursework and certificates in electronics, basic electrical, HVAC, industrial maintenance, networking and IT infrastructure. Those areas support a variety of industries and could provide a foundation for meeting needs associated with data centers. They also help our students build transferable technical skills and remain nimble as technology and regional workforce demands change,” said Campbell.
“When new needs come up, we start by talking with employers and advisory boards to understand what they’re looking for, where we may have gaps, and what we have the capacity to offer.”
Campbell said Heartland also asks partners across the regional labor market and considers new coursework or certificates along with expanding existing offerings.
“If the region signals a need for more focused training for data center careers, we would work through that same process. We want to have multiple ways to respond to employer needs while preparing students for opportunities across a range of industries,” he said.
On Nov. 16, the City of Bloomington planning commission will hold its second public hearing on data centers. The hearing will be at 4 p.m. at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts.
WGLT's Eric Stock contributed to this report.
