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The most radical change to the American economy in nearly a half-century is happening now.
After decades of neglect, America is reinvesting in itself, from hundred-billion-dollar factories to a small Wisconsin field on the edge of Lake Michigan, where Racine Local 430 members are racking and connecting the first union-built solar farm in the local's history.
"We're a small local, only 180 people, and until really recently, the biggest job any of us could remember was a hospital that peaked at 65 people," said Business Manager Chris Gulbrandson. "Having 30 members on one job, and a solar job that is just the first of three? That has never happened before."
Local 430 signatory contractors won the job because of provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act that reward companies with a 500% higher tax credit when they build the carbon-free economy using registered apprentices and paying prevailing wages. That economic incentive strongly favors union workers.
"The IRA definitely changed everything," Gulbrandson he said.
The IRA is one of four landmark laws passed by the Biden administration — also including the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the CHIPS and Science Act — that reversed a half-century of economic policies that punished working families and rewarded corporations for stripping the nation for parts and shipping jobs overseas.
Local 430 is far from alone. More than 11,000 IBEW members are currently working on projects supported by these Biden-era laws. Tens of thousands more are set to work on projects breaking ground in the next 18 months.
"There is no way we have this work without the IRA," Gulbrandson said. "It's a hell of a contrast to what we saw seven years ago."
Seven years ago, a Chinese technology giant called Foxconn announced plans for a $10 billion factory in Gulbrandson's jurisdiction. The state gave the company $3 billion in tax incentives up front — 50 times larger than any subsidy the state had ever provided — and spent millions to develop the site.
Gov. Scott Walker, House Speaker Paul Ryan and President Donald Trump all showed up for the groundbreaking.
"This is a great day for American workers and manufacturers," Trump said, promising 13,000 jobs.
Trump's guarantee came after two years assuring the American people that "next week will be infrastructure week" a promise broken so often it became a punchline. Foxconn was Trump's first high-profile infrastructure win.
And then it just disappeared.
"We thought we had hit the jackpot," Gulbrandson said. "It's a tenth of what they promised it would be."
Earlier this year, though, the Biden economy [see article in this issue] came to Racine.
On the site that Foxconn almost entirely abandoned, Microsoft announced a two-phase plan to build a $3.3 billion data center campus. No subsidy necessary.
Today, Gulbrandson has nearly 1,000 IBEW members working on Phase 1. When Phase 2 starts later this year, he will need another 500 to 600.
"We are in our fourth month on site, and it's already more work than Foxconn in six years," he said. "All the promises that were made about Foxconn are being fulfilled now."
Milwaukee Local 494 member Scott Dallesasse is helping build a downtown plaza, the first of a decade of work in the state funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act.
The $100 million FDA facility in Atlanta Local 613's jurisdiction, funded in part by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, is one of thousands of projects putting IBEW members to work today. "Biden has done so much for us," Atlanta Local 613 Business Manager Kenny Mullins said.
Welcome to the Infrastructure Decade
Fiascoes like Foxconn use to happen across the country — decades of handouts to corporations that took everything and gave a sliver of what they promised.
The results were a country where bridge collapses were more common in headlines than bridge openings. In the year President Joe Biden took office, the American Society of Civil Engineers released its Report Card for America's Infrastructure, giving the nation's infrastructure an overall grade of C-. In only six of 17 categories was the score higher than a D.
In the three and half years since Inauguration Day, the Biden administration and Democrats in the House and the Senate authorized more than $3 trillion in grants and tax credits to stimulate private investment, rebuild the country and reshape the economy.
For the IBEW, which was in nearly every negotiating room with elected leaders, that means thousands of jobs right now, and the projects are only getting started.
More than 880,000 construction jobs have been created since Inauguration Day, and the construction workforce is the largest in history. IBEW membership is up to 838,000.
"We are currently tracking 523 new clean energy projects that are already announced or underway, totaling 271,713 new jobs in 47 states and Puerto Rico," said Government Affairs International Representative John Zapfel.
After decades of greed that cut the legs out from under American factories, the four laws built in "Buy American" clauses with real teeth.
The proof is undeniable. Manufacturing construction spending in the U.S. has tripled to a $240 billion annual pace since Biden took office.
Announced plans include 163 new battery manufacturing sites, 117 new or expanded electric vehicle manufacturing facilities, and 156 solar and wind manufacturing plants.
Clean tech and semiconductor investments alone have surpassed $224 billion, and another quarter of a trillion dollars has been announced.
"We were in every room. We were asked about every senior position whose portfolio mattered for our jobs," said Fourth District International Representative Austin Keyser, who previously worked with the White House on behalf of the IBEW. "The president was clear with the environmentalists, with developers, with congresspeople: If they had language in mind, they needed to work with the IBEW because he was going to ask us before anything moved forward."
And this is not work that is merely promised. This is not work that's coming "someday."
Brothers and sisters across the country are putting paychecks in their pockets, and locals are adding tens of thousands of new members.
In Jeffersonville, Ohio, more than 450 members of Portsmouth Local 575 are at work now on a $3.5 billion electric vehicle battery plant owned by a partnership between Honda and LG. Honda is starting production of electric vehicles in the U.S. in 2026, in no small part because of tax incentives for U.S.-built EVs.
"It's been years since we've been this busy. Decades," Local 575 Business Manager Joe Dillow said of the 610-member local.
After decades of sending members out on the road, Local 575 is hosting 300 to 400 travelers.
"Portsmouth used to be an industrial area, and we are one again," Dillow said.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law alone will propel over $1.2 trillion of projects that will modernize and electrify the U.S. economy. By May, nearly $454 billion in funding had been released for 56,000 projects across more than 4,500 communities.
A year after the law took effect, The nonpartisan Brookings Institution wrote: "President Joe Biden was right when he announced the beginning of an infrastructure decade — and we're still in the opening stages. America's march toward a grand rebuild continues."
Thanks to the BIL and CHIPS Act, Panasonic is building a $4billion electric vehicle battery plant in De Soto, Kan., putting to work 700 to 900 members of Kansas City, Mo., Local 124.
More than 500 members of Casper, Wyo., Local 322 are building TerraPower's next-generation nuclear power plant in Kemmerer, funded in part by $2 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Support in the BIL and IRA for made-in-America EVs is driving a battery manufacturing boom, including the $3 billion Stellantis-Samsung plant paying double the overtime rate for members of Kokomo, Ind., Local 873.
The Micron plant is receiving $6.1billion in incentives to bring back production of semiconductors to where they were invented, back from China and Taiwan.
'This Is Right Now'
Ten years ago, Syracuse, N.Y., Local 43 had between 500 and 600 members.
On Business Manager Al Marzullo's desk are plans for a Phase 2 expansion of his training center — Phase 1, built by more than 20 Local 43 members, is just wrapping up — that would up capacity to more than 400 apprentices.
"In five years, we will be home to about 6,000 people and have more apprentices than we used to have members," he said.
This time, it's the CHIPS and Science Act that is driving the growth. Starting Jan. 1, Marzullo expects to dispatch 400 to 500 members to the $100 billion Micron semiconductor plant, which is receiving grants and support worth $6.1 billion.
At peak, Marzullo said, the company will need 2,000 to 3,000 IBEW members.
And it's all being built under a PLA.
Once the initial construction is done, Marzullo said, 600 members of Local 43 will work on site "in perpetuity."
"Micron is just one part of the conversation," Marzullo said. "With all the work that will grow up to support the Micron site, our hospitals, our schools, our small businesses that we have been organizing since times were hard, we need 1,600-plus members just for our original work. This isn't the future. This isn't 'Maybe someday.' This is right now. This is yesterday."
"In my lifetime, there have been so many bad policies that it got easy to forget that government can do things to make life better for working people," International President Kenneth W. Cooper said. "But the IBEW never forgot and never stopped fighting for working families, and every paycheck is proof. Now it's time to rehire the president who finally listened and gave us the power to make it real."
Syracuse, N.Y., Local 43 is quadrupling the capacity of its training center to handle a tidal wave of work. "When it is done, we will have more apprentices than we had members 10 years ago," Business Manager Alan Marzullo said.
The largest demand on Local 43 is the $50billion CHIPS Act-supported Micron semiconductor plant, which will put 3,000 IBEW members to work at peak and then 600 for the next 20 years, said Marzullo, above.
