Data Center Work: A Sellout for Electricians?

As Big Tech pours billions into constructing data centers across the United States, electricians tasked with wiring these colossal facilities are finding themselves at the center of a heated ethical debate. The sheer scale of these projects and their breakneck construction timelines have sparked talent wars for the industry’s most skilled workers. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) has positioned its members as the backbone of this boom, declaring in a March statement that union labor is “essential to the future of AI.” In response, tech giants like Meta have launched a skilled trade academy, while Google committed $50 million to train workers in the trades. Yet beneath this surface of opportunity, a growing unease is stirring among the very people building the infrastructure that powers artificial intelligence.

Online forums like r/electricians, which draws about half a million monthly visitors, are now buzzing with threads questioning the ethics of data center work. Some electricians fear that the AI revolution they are helping to build could eventually lead to widespread job losses. Others grapple with whether their labor makes them complicit in the harm these facilities inflict on local communities, from strained power grids to environmental concerns. For a few, the answer is a clear no: work is work, and bills must be paid. But for one electrician in the Midwest, the moral weight has become so heavy that he no longer reveals his profession.

“The conversation shifts or gets shut down altogether,” he says, recalling dates where disclosing his job led to accusations of contributing to something terrible. “That’s usually the last time you hear from them.” Speaking anonymously because he isn’t authorized to talk to reporters, this electrician sought out data center work deliberately, even taking a pay cut for the chance at upward mobility. Within months, he was promoted from electrician to a management role and now hopes to transition into engineering. “I just saw it as, ‘This is most likely going to be a major part of our future. And if you can’t beat them, join them,’” he explains. Still, he worries about corporate greed and the proliferation of scams that could harm workers.

Not everyone shares his pragmatic view. An IBEW member named Ryan says he has never worked at a data center and likely never will. “I think world governments are becoming more right-wing and more fascistic,” he says, adding that he distrusts corporations like those run by Elon Musk and Alex Karp, whom he calls “suspicious at best.” Ryan believes that if AI were destined for benevolent use, the landscape would look different. Instead, he sees “four or five AI companies just exchanging money with each other in a circle,” and he worries about an AI bubble bursting. As a union member, Ryan can decline jobs he finds unethical, including work at private prisons or data centers. Even if he were out of work for an extended period, he says it would be “really tough to want to take that job call.”