A Powerful and Unified Force for Building a Clean, Prosperous, and Equitable Economy

The United Steelworkers and the Sierra Club formed the BlueGreen Alliance (BGA) in 2006 in recognition that the future of working people and the health of the environment are inextricably linked, rejecting the false choice that good-paying jobs and economic opportunity are at odds with protecting our environment.  

BGA unifies labor unions and environmental organizations into a powerful force to fight climate change, protect the health of people and the environment, stand against economic and racial inequality, and create and maintain good-paying, union jobs in communities across the country.

BGA leverages the collective strength of our partners and their members to advocate for our shared solutions and to amplify a powerful, unified voice for a clean, prosperous, and equitable economy by:  

• Advocating for policies at the state and federal level;
• Providing education and engaging union members and environmentalists; and
• Communicating the benefits of this shared agenda for working people, their families, and their communities. 

In line with the principles laid out in Solidarity for Climate Action, our platform to put working people front and center as we create a new economy, our work focuses on five key areas: 

• Clean Economy Union Jobs: Science is unambiguous regarding the urgency of the climate crisis and the need to quickly drive down emissions. Climate change is real, it’s impacting workers and communities now, and we need to take action now to address it. BGA is working to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other pollutants by deploying all the zero-emission technologies at our disposal. Harnessing these technologies—and working to ensure that the jobs created are good-paying union jobs—will create the opportunity for a middle-class life and a clean environment for all.  

• Infrastructure and Community Resilience: 2021 saw the passage of a historic infrastructure law —the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL)—a $1.2 trillion investment in rebuilding and modernizing our nation’s crumbling infrastructure. The investments and programs included in the law will create good-paying, union jobs across the nation while making some important investments to address climate change. It includes billions in reauthorizations and existing programs and $550 billion in new federal infrastructure funding over five years to repair, rebuild, and modernize the nation’s bridges, transit systems, water infrastructure, and more. More than half of the bill’s funding is for transportation infrastructure—including surface transportation, airports, zero-emissions school buses, electric vehicle charging, ports, public transit, railways, and more—and it also provides significant funding for broadband, the power grid, water infrastructure, resilience, and legacy pollution.   

• Manufacturing and Industrial Policy: The industrial sector represents a large and growing share of emissions with far less progress made to date in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction than in many other sectors. Industrial sector emissions now account for roughly 30% GHG emissions in the United States and have nearly tripled worldwide since 1990. At the same time, these industries are essential to produce the materials and components necessary for clean technology and infrastructure, and to modern life. Manufacturing in the United States has long been the backbone of the middle class, providing good-paying jobs to workers across the country. With smart investments and trade policy, U.S. manufacturing can be the cleanest and most innovative in the world, and that we can create and sustain high-quality jobs making the nation’s future.   

• Equity and Healthy and Safe Communities: BGA was founded on the principle that good jobs and a healthy environment must be intertwined goals—that our economic and environmental problems must be addressed together to truly be solved. BGA strives to ensure that its environmental and economic policy work will lessen economic, racial, and environmental injustice across the United States. By fighting for access to cleaner and healthier building products with our Building Clean program, advocating for the protection of workers and communities from toxic chemicals, and promoting the prioritization of historically marginalized communities in efforts to grow the clean economy, BGA is working to build a clean, healthy, and prosperous economy for all.  

• Fairness for Workers and Communities: The United States is in the middle of a transition to a new, cleaner economy, but an energy transition that is fair for workers and communities will not happen organically. Ensuring that workers and communities are not being left behind should be a central focus of that transition. That will require our work to protect the environment to integrate efforts to ensure a fair and equitable transition and the creation of good-paying, union jobs in impacted communities. BGA supports a range of policies to lift up impacted workers and communities, invest in the economic development and diversification of these regions, and create good-paying, union jobs.  

OUR HISTORY 

Labor organizations have a long history of fighting for environmental progress. And, for decades, the environmental and labor movements have built relationships focused on shared priorities. For example, the UAW to help make the first Earth Day a success and the United Steelworkers worked with environmentalists to amend the Clean Air Act in 1990. And, in 1999, huge World Trade Organization demonstrations broke out in Seattle, as workers and environmentalists joined forces to fight the global race to the bottom for worker and environmental protections.  

Over the years, the movements saw that they had a lot in common and continued efforts were made to work together over the intervening years. In 2006, the United Steelworkers and the Sierra Club officially formed BGA in recognition that the future of working people and the health of the environment are inextricably linked, rejecting the false choice that good-paying jobs and economic opportunity are at odds with protecting our environment. 

This unique alliance of labor unions and environmental organizations gained momentum as the United States—and the world economy—sank into the Great Recession in 2008. The early years of BGA focused on three main federal bills:

• The American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act;
• American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA); and
• the Employee Free Choice Act.

BGA organizers worked in key states—mostly in the industrial Midwest—to drive worker and environmental support for these three pieces of legislation. However, in the end, though both ACES and the Free Choice Act passed the House, they did not get the votes needed to overcome filibusters. Neither bill would pass and become law. Meanwhile, BGA worked hard on the ARRA—a new piece of legislation to provide a shot of economic investment into clean energy, manufacturing, infrastructure, and more. That effort saw success and the ARRA—a sweeping $831 billion investment in the nation’s future— was signed into law, marking the first major federal law that BGA had a big hand in developing and pushing.  

That momentum continued in the 2010s to now, when the organization geared up to fight for effective policies at the state level in several key states. Key victories at the state level included the first “Buy Clean” law passed in the nation in California, bringing together workers and environmentalists to defeat efforts to eliminate the rights of public workers to organize into unions in Ohio, passing a Solar Energy Standard and eventually a 100% clean energy law in Minnesota, and getting a first-in-the-nation energy transition office to ensure workers and communities aren’t left behind as we switch to cleaner, cheaper energy in Colorado.  

In the 2020s, BGA grew to meet the moment and was instrumental in the passage of key federal policies and investments in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act that are revitalizing U.S. manufacturing, reducing climate emissions, and creating good union jobs across the country. Now, we continue our work to ensure these investments deliver a clean, prosperous, and equitable future for all.  

Get in Contact

General e-mail: info@bluegreenalliance.org

To view career opportunities at the BlueGreen Alliance, click here.

*** Please direct media inquiries to Justin Jackson or 951-214-9108. ***

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