Wisconsin’s construction workforce excluded from building Wisconsin utility renewable energy projects

On Tuesday, March 26, Wisconsin’s major electric power utilities announced a first in the nation pledge to strictly use labor unions to build their renewable energy projects.

In response, the Associated Builders and Contractors of Wisconsin and the National Federation of Independent Business – Wisconsin released the following statement:

“Over seventy percent of Wisconsin construction employees work for Open Shop contractors.1 They consistently deliver high-quality work, pay taxes and utility bills, and actively contribute to training the future workforce of skilled construction professionals. It’s vexing that Wisconsin utilities would deprive their ratepayers of savings from having all responsible Wisconsin contractors compete for their business.”

1 See unionstats.com, Union Membership, Coverage, Density and Employment by State: 2023

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