NATIONAL — At the 30th AFL-CIO Constitutional Convention from June 7 through 10 in Minneapolis, Minn., a set of 20 resolutions were introduced and adopted including Resolution 7: “We Want Good Jobs Today and Tomorrow.”
This resolution, while touching on a multitude of issues currently impacting the labor community — including Artificial Intelligence (AI) usage on job sites and influx of data center construction to states nationwide — calls for protections on the job including employment security, quality wages, benefits and safe working conditions through utilizing precise bargaining tools.
Behind the Resolution
“We Want Good Jobs Today and Tomorrow” is composed of four main pillars: a trade policy that puts workers first, investing in workers and communities, leveraging the government’s purchasing power to support working families and pairing industrial policy with the right to collectively bargain.
First, Resolution 7 asks to renegotiate the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement to create offshore union jobs and help stop prevention of collective bargaining.
Also referred to as USMCA, this agreement was established in July 2020 — replacing the former North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which originally went into effect in January 1994. Behind this pillar, the AFL-CIO has pushed for an improvement of Mexico labor conditions and to increase trade enforcement to create equal opportunities for U.S. workers. This additionally includes reallocating tariff funding toward working American development.
These pillars additionally hone-in on worker investment and freedom in terms of legislation adoption — ensuring policy makers continue to introduce statutes, which reinforce worker-rights and industry standards.
“By exercising our collective power at the bargaining table, in policymaking and in the marketplace, we can shape today and tomorrow’s economy to produce good jobs and improve everyone’s quality of life,” the AFL-CIO detailed within Resolution 7.
AI Protections
A focal point of Resolution 7 — and one, which labor leaders spoke out on during the AFL-CIO Constitutional Convention — includes its AI citation, and how employers can best protect their workers, while implementing developing technologies.
“Workers are not powerless, we know how to deal with technological change. We organize, we bargain, we legislate, we educate, we build coalitions,” SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said at the AFL-CIO conference. “We fight for standards that protect not just one workplace but entire industries. And when workers have power, technology can be governed differently.”
This effort, the AFL-CIO emphasized, is accomplished through its “Workers First Initiative on AI,” which the organization launched in October 2025 to provide employers with a set of guidelines for how to best implement and utilize AI in the workplace.
The Workers First on AI Initiative highlights the importance of collective bargaining, increase of guardrails against harmful AI usages and creating a worker-first environment inclusive of implementing worker voice into AI software, among others.
Since its inception, various concerns and hesitancies toward AI usage — and its Data Center nervous system — have centered around job security, protections and safety, living wages, lack of workspace transparency and a future of economic inequality.
“The value of real-life work and real-life skills are able to be done better by humans; We have to have adaptability, in every course of the market,” Greater Kansas City Construction and Building Trades Council Political Director Mike Talboy said in an interview. “As people, as we continue to lean more on machines — becoming too reliant on them that is the problem.”
Though Resolution 7 pushes for a human-made future, it does not discuss AI idleness, but rather how workers, and Americans respectively, should equip themselves in workspaces with the proper guardrails and education to prevent deregulation — emphasizing that it is when AI presents itself in workspaces with no protections and regulations, when issues have occurred.
This is a point, which local labor leaders believe is an important aspect for employers and workers to keep in mind.
“AI is here, the apparatus and what goes along with that, but high-tech, large-scale computing is going to involve high-skilled labor,” Talboy said in an interview. “There needs to be a balance between the actual deployment and usage of it and making sure it’s regulated and used responsibly. That cuts across all sectors — making sure we don’t become too dependent on it to our own detriment.”
“The AI revolution is coming; we need to fight back and put people to work building data centers but protecting jobs; chart a path to make sure people have employment, grow membership and the economy,” Missouri AFL-CIO President Jake Hummel said in an interview.
Data Centers
In conjunction with AI protections, Resolution 7 and the AFL-CIO describes the importance of guidelines with data centers — which have made up a significant percentage of private construction business over the past year.
Currently, 4,420 registered data centers operate across the U.S., with at least one housed in each state across the country.
While larger clusters exist in Virginia — commonly referred to as the data center capital of the U.S. — with 632, Texas with 473 and California with 273, Missouri now holds 91 data centers and Kansas occupies 36, according to data from The Data Center Map.
And with this amount of data centers in operation nationwide, it has directly impacted private office construction totals — becoming the largest category within the industry as Data Center Knowledge reported from the U.S. Census Bureau data, which showed that as of April 2026, data centers accounted for $50.7 billion of its seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR), or 52%.
This is a 27% increase from 2025, which totaled data centers at $39.8 billion of private office construction’s SAAR.
“The fact that data center construction spending exceeds that of traditional office spending reflects both the magnitude of the artificial intelligence investment supercycle and a lagging office market hampered by still pervasive remote work and elevated project financing costs,” Anirban Basu, chief economist at Associated Builders and Contractors said in a report.
While Resolution 7 emphasizes the importance of data center growth as the AFL-CIO believes it is the key to protecting data privacy and security, the organization pushes to demand these data centers are union-made and contribute to the economy, rather than requesting tax abatements. It emphasizes the importance of harmony agreements and ensuring labor standards are upheld on all job sites, but those in particular involving data centers, with proper accountability for derelict.
“When dealing with this locally, labor has always pushed for responsible development and provisions especially with tax incentives,” IBEW Local 124 Business Representative Wade Kiefer said in an interview. “If giving tax incentives, a tax break, bonding or public incentive, we feel like labor should have first pick at the apple; it should be rooted in procurement legislation for whatever jurisdiction.”
And while emphasizing responsibility and safety for both job sites and the legislation, which kickstarted it, Kiefer shared the importance of data centers for the future of job growth and next generation prosperity.
“Labor is not for giving away the farm, but we also want to make sure we aren’t killing away development,” Kiefer said in an interview. “We’ve been building data centers for 30 years; I’m glad AFL put out a statement — we feel the same way here at [IBEW Local] 124, every local has been working hard for any project big or small.”
Through Resolution 7, the AFL-CIO plans to launch a campaign centered around its Worker First AI Agenda, with a highlight on three G’s: guardrails, guarantees and growth.
Guardrails: to protect the safety and wellbeing of all working families.
Guarantees: utilizing tools including collective action, bargaining, legislation and executive action to prevent job loss and avoid harm to working families caused by American trade policies.
Growth: for future generations, to secure workers a seat at the table, make jobs safer and prepare the next generation, while ensuring access to skilled training.
“Is AI here, yes, is AI going to be a tool that continues to grow and be used in different ways as the decades pass, yes. But does it need to have guidelines that protect real life human beings to still have a balance that allows for productivity, yes,” Talboy said in an interview.
Julia Williams — a Kansas City native — is a reporter and digital producer for The Labor Beacon. A University of Missouri School of Journalism alumna, she previously served as the editor-in-chief of The Northeast News before joining The Labor Beacon staff.
Williams’s grandfather was a Claycomo Ford Motor Company retiree and avid UAW Local 249 supporter, allowing her to understand the union difference from a young age.
In her free time, Williams enjoys spending time with her family, traveling to see her friends and hanging out at home with her cat, Greta. She loves a good cup of coffee, seeing local, live music and shopping secondhand. With a passion for storytelling, she hopes to bring her knowledge of journalistic integrity to the Kansas City union community — giving union and labor workers a voice, while holding people in powerful positions accountable.
