Unlock new opportunities for Illinois by reforming data center law
Plumbers, pipefitters, sprinkler fitters, welders and HVACR technicians represent a skilled workforce that keeps Illinois running. From hospitals to schools and advanced manufacturing floors, our 30,000 members install and maintain the systems that safeguard health and safety and move the energy and water needed for daily operations. Now, as new infrastructure is needed to fuel the digital age, there is a significant opportunity to provide thousands of new high-paying jobs across Illinois. If lawmakers clear the obstacles in its way, the members of the pipe trades unions are ready to help build our state’s future.
As we enter a new age in which cloud computing and artificial intelligence have exploded in popularity with entire industries employing them, the data center infrastructure needed to support them has become critical. With the rapid growth of data center projects nationwide, states are competing to secure work that brings thousands of construction, maintenance, and operations jobs. For the hard-working members of the Illinois Pipe Trades Association, this is more than a change of pace; it is a potential long-term lift that can reverberate across the construction industry for years.
Illinois is more than equipped to take on these opportunities. Our skilled labor force and robust apprenticeship pipeline are more than prepared to compete for these projects, bringing communities steady capital, new jobs and sizable new tax revenues. Yet one barrier continues to chill momentum and send investment over state lines: how the outdated provisions of the Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) are applied to these facilities.
When BIPA was passed nearly 20 years ago, it set a needed privacy framework to protect sensitive data. It pushed employers to raise their standards for handling sensitive information and mandated extra steps to secure it. However, the law’s sweeping liability framework has created new legal uncertainties for companies that work with biometric data. As a result, Illinois remains far less of a competitive option for data center developers and has led to the loss of dozens of potential projects.
Fixing this won’t require weakening privacy laws or risking Illinoisans’ data. Instead, lawmakers have the opportunity to adopt targeted reforms that continue to provide transparent, fair and strong guardrails, like strict data security standards, to keep our data safe.
Communities across the state are counting on state lawmakers to get this right. As the next generation of piping professionals begin their apprenticeships, data centers stand to play a significant role in providing them with the necessary job opportunities to provide for their families for many years. We have the opportunity to send a strong signal that Illinois is open for high-tech, union-built infrastructure.
Now is the moment to modernize BIPA and unlock Illinois’ potential. Let’s make sure the next generation of pipe trades craftspeople are building our state’s future, not watching those jobs cross state lines.
• William Allison is executive director of the Illinois Pipe Trades Association.