Industry and IBEW News

Lowell City Council voted 10 to 0 for a one-year data center moratorium after IBEW members and neighbors clashed over a Markley expansion, illustrating the broader political squeeze facing Gov. Healey as consumer anger over high energy costs collides with her AI driven economic agenda and a stalled data center tax exemption that remains unfinalized 16 months after she signed it into law.
Virginia lawmakers are divided over whether to eliminate a data center sales tax exemption that cost the state an estimated $1.9 billion last fiscal year, with teachers and fiscal advocates calling for repeal while IBEW Local 26 and other trades unions rallied to preserve the incentive they say drives well paying union construction jobs in the Commonwealth.
Hundreds of Franklin County, Missouri residents filled a high school gymnasium to oppose rezoning agricultural land for two proposed data center campuses, with local trades union representatives countering that the projects would bring thousands of union jobs paying over $100,000 a year while a planning commission recommendation still awaits final county commission approval.
More than 90 retired members and spouses turned out for the first meeting of a revived IBEW Local 48 retirees group in Portland, a decade after the program went dormant, generating nearly 50 ideas for activities ranging from volunteer work and tool donations to new apprentices to regular social meetups across the metro area.
The 704 MW Revolution Wind offshore wind project has begun delivering power to Connecticut and Rhode Island after surviving two Trump administration stop-work orders reversed in federal court. Built by more than 1,000 local union workers, the 65-turbine project is expected to power over 350,000 homes and save New England ratepayers up to $500 million per year in wholesale energy costs once fully operational.