Trump’s War on Wind: Tens of Thousands of Jobs Destroyed, Unions Say

Environmental groups and unions representing construction workers found common ground this summer over President Trump’s blocking of offshore wind projects.

The Revolution Wind offshore turbine farm off the coast of Rhode Island is 80 percent complete, but its fate remains uncertain after the Department of Interior issued a stop-work order on August 22.

“The full thing was finally getting put together, and having it stopped like that was out of nowhere,” said Antonio Gianfrancesco, a Laborer from Local 271 who has been working the project for more than two years.

The project’s halt resulted in a fiery statement from Sean McGarvey, president of North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU), an alliance of 14 construction unions: “Trump just fired 1,000 of our members who had already labored to complete 80 percent of this major energy project. A ‘stop-work order’ is the fancy bureaucratic term, but it means one thing: throwing skilled American workers off the job after they’ve spent a decade training, building, and delivering.”

‘SLAP ON THE FACE’

“For the Department of the Interior to come in and put a stop order on the job, it’s just a slap on the face,” said carpenter Tony Vaz, who had been working on Revolution Wind for several months. He was preparing to start another four-week stint on the offshore construction site on August 28.

“I really can’t understand the decision,” said Vaz. “They’re talking about national security. We’re trying to create energy to solve the energy crisis. If you don’t have the energy, you are going to be in the dark, and that’s an even worse scenario.”

Vaz and Gianfrancesco are Rhode Island residents; both complained about the high price of electricity in their state.

Gianfrancesco said it felt important to be working on Revolution Wind. “When I was offered to do [a job] that would decrease energy prices in Rhode Island, I was excited about that, and also intrigued by the green energy thing too,” he said.

Local environmental organizers have been big supporters of offshore wind farm construction, and they worked together with building trades unions to pass the Act on Climate in 2021, committing the state to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Climate organizers and unions later worked together to pass legislation to require the state’s electrical utility to get all its energy from renewable sources within the next decade and mandate prevailing wages and apprenticeships on big renewable energy projects.

Iron Workers Union members, too, have been assembling Revolution Wind components on land and erecting turbines offshore. “Halting this job now doesn’t make America safer, it puts families at risk, kneecaps a nearly complete piece of critical infrastructure, and jeopardizes thousands of working-class union jobs,” said IWU President Eric Dean in a statement. “Let us finish the work we started.”

SUPPORT LABOR NOTES

BECOME A MONTHLY DONOR

Give $10 a month or more and get our "Fight the Boss, Build the Union" T-shirt.

Revolution Wind would provide over 700 megawatts of electricity—equivalent to 2.5 percent of all power generated in New England. It was expected to reduce reliance on natural gas during winter months, when demand increases to keep homes warm and offshore winds are most gusty. Climate justice groups have been quick to denounce Trump’s move as an attack not just on the planet but also on workers.

Vaz reflected that in the past, he’s been in meetings where local environmental organizations expressed opposition to projects his union supported, but this one was different. “Having these people in favor of the project, having them with us—I felt confident this was good for America.”

It’s common for large projects, like Revolution Wind, to use union labor to ensure a steady pool of workers who have the skills for the job. In 2022, NABTU signed a project labor agreement with Ørsted, the Danish company building Revolution Wind.

The National Offshore Wind Agreement provides for apprenticeships and other training investments in addition to ensuring that these would be good-paying union jobs. It also included diversity targets, and “project-by-project Workforce Equity Committees to prioritize recruiting and retaining people of color, women, gender nonconforming people and local environmental justice communities,” as described in a statement by Ørsted.

TRUMP’S WAR ON WIND

Rather than agree to talks to restart the offshore wind-related projects, the Trump administration threatened to halt additional ones. In September, the administration used court filings to suggest it would reconsider federal approval of other previously approved projects, including the Maryland Offshore Wind Project, SouthCoast Wind, and New England Wind 1 and 2. That came on the heels of an announcement by the Department of Transportation that it was pulling $679 million in funding for upgrades to ports in support of offshore wind-related projects.

For workers in the building trades, the attacks on the wind industry spell a lot more uncertainty. As the Painters union said in a statement, “If this administration is willing to stop a nearly-finished, fully-approved infrastructure project with no warning, every project in every sector is now at risk.”

“In the first six months of this Administration, they have killed tens of thousands of jobs, and for the first time in 13 years, building trades members are collecting unemployment checks instead of building the energy dominance President Trump promised,” said NABTU's McGarvey.

Trump is a noted opponent of wind turbines. He has long complained about the sight of them off a golf course he owns in Scotland. Even as wildfires, heat waves, and deadly floods worsen, his administration is attempting to end the government’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

“I still have hope that the federal administration will change their mind,” said Vaz. “Wind power is working abroad and it will work here too. It would be awesome to get that call, and they say, ‘Hey, you’re gonna get to finish what you started.’”