Infrastructure Bill Offers Telecom Unions a $43 Billion Boon

An obscure provision tucked into the bipartisan infrastructure bill could steer billions of dollars for broadband expansion to companies with large union workforces, presenting an opportunity for organized labor to expand and creating logistical hurdles for the nation’s largest telecom providers.

The part of the bill dedicated to distributing $42.5 billion in broadband funds would give preference to companies with a record of following labor and employment laws—a requirement that, practically speaking, could give an advantage to professionalized union workforces over the constellation of subcontractors that power the telecom industry.

Yet telecom’s decentralized workforce and executives’ lack of familiarity with ...