Union labor is helping Mississippi Power and its Southern Co. Services affiliate get the utility's troubled Kemper County integrated gasification combined-cycle project back on track. In its earlier stages, the now $4-billion-plus Kemper project was being built almost entirely by contractors with non-union workforces.

But as the 582-MW project faced increasingly serious management, budget and staffing challenges, SCS, which is overseeing the job for Mississippi Power, has turned to union hiring halls for hundreds of needed pipefitters, welders, ironworkers, electricians and millwrights.