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TRUMP’S WAR ON WIND: TENS OF THOUSANDS OF JOBS DESTROYED, UNIONS
SAY  
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Kari Thompson
September 22, 2025
Labor Notes
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_ 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. _

Wind turbine foundation components wait at the Revolution Wind
construction hub at the Port of Providence in Providence, Rhode
Island. , Adam Glanzman/Bloomberg via Getty Images

 

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
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“Let us finish the work we started.”

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
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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
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“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
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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.’”

A version of this article appeared in Labor Notes issue #559, October
2025 [[link removed]]. Don't
miss an issue, subscribe today.
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Kari Thompson [[link removed]] is a staff
writer/organizer at Labor Notes.

* Revolution Wind; The National Offshore Wind Agreement; Union
Labor; Trump Administration;
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