Lawmakers should bring back construction jobs by spurring data-center industry

THE jobs crisis in Washington has been well-documented, but nowhere has the lack of jobs hit harder than in the construction industry. As the head of the statewide coalition of construction unions, representing 50,000 workers, I have seen our industry endure 23 straight months of job losses and account for nearly a third of all jobs lost in the state in 2009.

We are usually prepared as an industry for an unemployment rate of around 9.5 percent, which is where statewide unemployment stands right now; but instead the construction industry is experiencing an average of 35 percent unemployment, and as high as 50 percent in some parts of the state.

In previous lean times, our state's construction workers were able to find work in others parts of the country, such as car plants in the Midwest or oil refineries off the California coast. But our country is in the middle of the worst economy since the Great Depression, and even those jobs have dried up.

There don't seem to be many hopeful signs in sight. Experts say commercial construction, which accounts for 40 percent of the construction industry, will probably continue to decline nationally and statewide until the third quarter of 2011.

Our Legislature, however, has the power to help. While our state lawmakers have proposed several bills this session to create jobs, which we appreciate, we as an industry have focused much of our efforts on House Bill 3147 and Senate Bill 6789, companion bills that would remove a major barrier to bringing data-center construction — and thousands of jobs — back to Washington.

The legislation would authorize a temporary sales-tax exemption on the purchase and installation of computers and energy equipment for new data centers in rural counties. The bills have legislative support from both parties and from all parts of the state, and data-center builders and owners have already testified that they would build quickly in Washington if the tax burden were lifted.

It was not so long ago that the data-center industry was thriving in Eastern Washington, which has the inexpensive hydropower, temperate climate and fiber-optic infrastructure that data-center operators covet. Just a few years ago, we had up to 1,000 construction workers on duty at one time in Chelan, Douglas and Grant counties on multiple data-center projects. For the state's electricians alone, the projects amounted to work for 900 people, 2.7 million hours worked and $8.6 million to the local economy.

But in November 2007, everything changed. That was when the state attorney general determined that data centers do not qualify for an existing sales-tax exemption designed to attract business to rural areas.

Since then, no data centers have been built in Washington, and the industry has moved elsewhere. Just last month, Facebook announced it was building a data center in Prineville, Ore., instead. Google, Disney, Apple and even Seattle's Amazon have seriously considered Washington data centers and decided against them because of the tax climate.

Each of these data centers provides hundreds of construction jobs, 30 to 50 permanent high-wage jobs for operations and property-tax revenue for years to come — all for parts of the state that need it the most.

The data-center legislation in Olympia would bring a growing high-tech industry back to the state, create an economic stimulus for rural Washington and provide hundreds of jobs for our state's working families. It is an opportunity that our Legislature can't afford to pass up.