Nevada unions, politicians caught between AI job creation and destruction
The state’s unionized workers are benefitting from a massive boom in data center construction but wary of AI’s longer-term threat to employment on the Las Vegas Strip.
Photography and video by Daniel Cole
Reporting by Valerie Volcovici
Video by Elizabeth Mendez
Filed: October 28, 2026, 10 a.m. GMT
On more than 100,000 acres of Nevada desert east of Reno, one of the world’s largest concentrations of data centers is taking shape, providing years of work for thousands of electricians, pipefitters and other union tradespeople who are building it.
About 400 miles southeast, along the iconic Las Vegas Strip, the AI technology powered by such data centers is taking a toll: Self-driving Zoox and Waymos are replacing human-driven taxis and valets; casino floor bartenders are being replaced by robots; and MGM’s massive call center is slashing hundreds of jobs.
That split screen is challenging the Nevada Teamsters, a politically powerful network of local labor unions representing 30,000 workers across the construction, transportation and hospitality industries, many of whom will be voting in the Nov. 3 elections. Some want to see new data-center construction halted or slowed. Others view the boom as a gift.
“My job is to represent all of our unions,” said Ross Kinson, the Nevada Teamsters’ political director, adding the group had launched a process in April to find a unified stance ahead of the November polls.
“This is a very, very important issue to the building trades, and it’s providing a lot of jobs and creating good opportunities for a lot of people.” But, he said, he has been encouraging members to consider the flip side: “What is it doing to our jobs?”
Nevada unions’ soul-searching reflects the national debate underway over whether regulation should slow down AI development amid conflicting projections of job destruction and creation – and whether AI will ultimately lift humanity or harm it.
It’s likely to affect Nevada’s voting on Nov. 3.
The Nevada Teamsters interviewed more than 180 political candidates from both parties ahead of the election, Kinson said. Those who didn’t support strong worker protections, or those looking for an outright ban on new data-center construction, were unlikely to win the union’s backing.
“It’s a political minefield for politicians to tiptoe through,” said Kinson.
Nevada will also play a significant role in the 2028 presidential elections as the second state in the Democratic primary schedule behind South Carolina.
Robot bartenders
On a suburban street just off the Las Vegas Strip, 63-year-old Larry Goldfinger and a group of fellow Teamsters he jokingly calls “the walking dead” trudge through the desert heat, clipboards in hand. They’re knocking on doors to promote candidates they believe will protect the city’s workers from AI-driven job losses.
Goldfinger has spent nearly three decades as a valet at some of the Strip’s most iconic casinos, and another decade in Vegas hospitality jobs – work he now fears will dry up as AI automation takes over everything from concierge services to bartending.
“I raised my family, and I have had a good life doing it, and I feel like these guys that are 30ish aren’t going to be able to do that,” he said, wearing a Teamsters baseball cap to shield his head from the Nevada sun.
By 2035, AI and automation could put up to 92,000 Southern Nevada hospitality jobs at risk, or roughly one-third of that workforce, according to an analysis by RCG Economics…
