The Blue-Green Alliance, a partnership between the Sierra Club and the United Steelworkers Union, bridges the United States’ largest environmental organization and its largest manufacturing union. Focused on global warming, clean energy, fair trade issues and reducing toxics in the workplace, the alliance is currently active in six states with plans to expand to 10 more by the end of 2008.

David Foster, the alliance’s executive director, spent 16 years organizing workers in the western United States before taking the reigns at Blue Green. He says that working on the West Coast, specifically in the Pacific Northwest during the 2001 energy crisis, taught him that the best way to solve far-reaching problems is to push local groups into conversation with one another.

He’s taken that experience and is now working to parlay it into success in the fight against global climate change. As the movements to create green economy and so-called green-collar jobs have gathered momentum in the political world the popular consciousness, Sustainable Industries took the opportunity to talk with Foster, a long-time labor leader, about the promise the transition toward a green economy holds, for both business owners and workers.

SI: What does the Blue-Green Alliance do?

DF: The Blue-Green Alliance is a partnership between the U.S. Steelworkers Union, which is North America’s largest manufacturing union, and the Sierra Club. The group’s 1.3 million members and supporters make it the largest manufacturing organization and the largest environmental organization in the country coming together in a unique partnership focused on the fundamental transformation of the economy taking place, and trying to ensure it happens in a way that’s good for both workers and the environment.

SI: Why is global warming an important issue to a union?