Note to Bernie: AI could herald new age for trade jobs, unions |
Note to Bernie: AI could herald new age for trade jobs, unions
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) should be celebrating the AI revolution, not trying to shut it down. After all, AI may cause some employment upheaval, but it is already encouraging the growth of middle-class jobs. It could even lead to the rebuilding of unions.
As the progressive senator from Vermont rails against data centers and warns of a job apocalypse, in addition to yelling about tech billionaires and other pet peeves, he overlooks that AI is causing a boom in blue-collar work. Many workers now being hired in one of the great building sprees of all time will join unions — the kind that fund Bernie’s politics.
Meta highlighted that reality this week by announcing that it is forming America’s Workforce Academy, a $115 million training program meant to develop a new generation of welders, plumbers, electricians and other trades workers needed to build out AI facilities.
Not only will Meta’s school train people for free in fields key to the new technology’s infrastructure, it will also guarantee them jobs upon graduation. The company will provide students with transportation and pay for their certification in their new fields. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Meta is not a selfless enterprise, of course; the social media powerhouse is providing this opportunity because it sees a critical shortage of such workers available in the U.S. It and others in the industry are investing hundreds of billions of dollars on AI-related facilities including data centers, an unparalleled build-out that will not be completed without people who know how to wire, weld and construct such projects.
Meta’s start-up will begin with pilot programs in Louisiana, Ohio, Texas and Indiana. In the first year, they expect to graduate thousands of students. The firm is partnering with a nonprofit run by Mike Rowe, who has for years advocated for training more workers in the trades.
Meta and Rowe........