IBEW 1253 Welcomes New Apprenticeship Class

IBEW Local 1253 recently welcomed a new class of 16 first-year electrical apprentices. In their first class, the new apprentices learned about the struggles workers face in the field and the threats to their unions as well the benefits of union membership like workplace protections, pensions, health insurance and more.

“I told them there are people out there today in our society, at the helm of government, where they would just as soon jail you for your union membership, than to recognize you,” said Paquet. “And that's the world that we live in. And you have to be prepared for that.”

Work for IBEW electricians slowed down substantially due to the expiration and weakening of clean energy tax credits in President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which Senator Susan Collins voted to advance. Many Maine IBEW 1253 members have had to leave the state to work in New York and Virginia, including 30 members who are working on data center projects. Paquet said while work has been slow in Maine after the massive boom in solar, the local is on a “steady path.” He said data centers are a major growth sector for union electricians because so much of the work is electrical.

“Hopefully we'll be able to get the right things in place that would entertain that growth here in Maine,” said Paquet.

Paquet serves on the Maine Data Center Advisory Council, which was established this year by Governor Janet Mills to “provide strategic input, facilitate coordinated state planning, and evaluate policy tools to address large-scale data center opportunities and related benefits and risks to the State of Maine.” The council‘s stated goal is to protect electric ratepayers, maintain electric grid reliability, minimize environmental impacts, and enable responsible and appropriately sited economic development. The advisory council has been holding public listening sessions over the past several weeks.

The Maine Data Center Advisory Council was proposed as part of a bill that would have put a temporary moratorium on data centers larger than 20 megawatts. Governor Mills vetoed the bill, citing her support for a proposed data center on the Jay Mill site, but the company involved in that project has since pulled out, putting the project on hold indefinitely. Other proposed projects in Lewiston and Wiscasset were halted due to local opposition. The council’s final report to the Governor and Legislature must be completed by January 29, 2027.

Paquet noted that Maine has also established a statutory goal to install 300 megawatts of energy storage capacity that needs to be permitted. However, he said it’s difficult to move forward with the permitted because with the current grid infrastructure. As solar investment has dissipated with the expiration of federal clean energy tax credits, IBEW 1253 is fighting to keep alive a 150-megawatt solar project on about 900 acres that was tied to the proposed data center project in Jay. The project would be the largest in Maine and could take three years to build, but is facing resistance from local resident who have collected enough signatures to put 180-moratorium on the project on the November ballot.

Paquet said a 100-megawatt solar project in Township 16 near Cherryfield went to a non-union contractor using out-of-state workers. The union filed several unfair labor practices, but they have gone unanswered because the Trump administration has gutted the National Labor Relations Board. The state shut down the project for a day because the workers the contractor hired weren’t even state certified to do electrical work.

About 120 IBEW Local 1253 members and their families recently attended big union picnic. Union members and their families enjoyed strip steak, smash burgers, ice cream and 150 lobsters that were freshly caught right off Blue Hill that day. U.S. Senate candidate Troy Jackson was in attendance and spoke with members. The event featured fishing-themed prize giveaways including new fishing poles, scales, tool kits, tackle boxes and even a charcoal smoker.

“It was a really good event and it was a good turnout,” IBEW Business Manager Nick Paquet. “I think we also secured some volunteers already for next year. I really enjoyed watching the volunteers prepare everything we needed for the event. I'm starting to see the torch being passed to younger members to set up these events. Years before a lot of this organizing would be on two or three people."