Steamfitters UA Local 602 is putting politicians on notice over data centers. The Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., union says candidates who oppose the projects should not expect its support.
That comes after X dropped a bombshell: The platform's Safety team uncovered a bot farm of roughly 200,000 suspected inauthentic accounts from China, including about 200 specifically pushing arguments against U.S. artificial intelligence infrastructure, data centers, electric bills, and the power grid. Some posted AI-generated cartoons showing data-center operators getting rich while consumers paid more. China, it turns out, has a rooting interest in Americans turning against these projects.
Local 602 spelled it out in a memo to members.
This is an existential moment for Local 602. We are drawing a clear line. Any politician who stands against these projects should not expect our doors knocked, our phones banked, or our dollars spent on their behalf. We have watched members fight for decades to reach the middle class. We are not going to let that be taken from them by political convenience.
Sidney Bonilla, Local 602’s treasurer and business manager, said members knock on doors and help pay for campaigns. The union usually backs Democrats. Bonilla said candidates’ records on data centers will now factor into who gets that help.
“We are dependent on these jobs,” Bonilla said.
A Kansas union representing HVAC and railroad workers has already crossed party lines over the issue. After decades of backing Democrats, it endorsed Republican state Sen. Ty Masterson for governor. His Democratic opponent’s opposition to data-center construction was one reason for the switch.
IBEW Local 26 members have been showing up at public hearings and planning meetings in Virginia, Maryland and Washington to argue for the projects.
Political coordinator Don Slaiman said Local 26 members worked 28 million hours last year. A decade ago, they worked 14 million. Slaiman called the current boom a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” for people in the trades to reach the upper-middle class.
Those are the same projects the China-linked accounts were talking about.
X said the 200 accounts were posting in a way that “could manipulate a legitimate debate about American AI and energy policy.” OpenAI found another China-linked operation in June called “Data Center Bandwagon.” It used ChatGPT to generate English-language posts hitting data centers over energy costs.
There was no shortage of Americans already unhappy about them, which is exactly what makes the Chinese influence operation so effective. A University of Pennsylvania survey in early August found 61 percent opposed building a new data center in their area, up 12 points from an earlier survey. YouGov found 47 percent saying new data centers were bad for the country. Twenty-four percent said they were good. Foreign adversaries don't need to manufacture outrage from scratch. They just need to pour gasoline on a fire that's already burning.
Trump saw this coming, and his position hasn't moved. “If I were a community, I would want the data center. It means jobs, it means income, and it means lower taxes.”
Before one of these facilities opens, somebody has to pour the concrete, wire it, install the cooling systems, and put in the generators. OpenAI, Google and Microsoft have all partnered with unions while trying to find enough skilled workers for the construction boom.
Local 602 has made its terms pretty clear. Politicians can oppose the projects. They just shouldn't expect the union's money or manpower afterward. While China runs bot farms to slow America's AI buildout, these workers are showing up at public hearings, at job sites, and now at the ballot box.