The Washington Post reported yesterday that key senators in the "Gang of Eight" negotiations over creating a commonsense immigration process are developing plans to reduce family visas, a decidedly anti-family stance. 

The united labor movement’s immigration principles are straight-forwardly pro-family: “Family reunification is an important goal of immigration policy and it is in the national interest for it to remain that way.”

More than 800 union members, their families, immigration advocates and community leaders rallied in front of the Arizona state Capitol yesterday to reaffirm their support for commonsense immigration reform that protects immigrants and America's workers. In a press conference before the rally, Arizona AFL-CIO Executive Director Rebekah Friend announced that the organization had adopted a resolution that calls on Congress to pass immigration reform, including a practical and inclusive road map to citizenship that reflects core American values such as fairness, equality and family unity.

While most states saw a decline in union membership in 2012, California bucked the trend as 100,000 new workers joined collective bargaining units. Pushing the growth were Latino workers and nurses, the Los Angeles Times reported today. Overall, 11.3% of America's workers are current union members, which is a smaller percentage from 2011, but in California, the number is closer to 18% and is growing. Other southwestern states, such as Nevada and Texas, are also seeing growth in union membership.

Students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are taking a stand for striking Palermo's Pizza workers and you can help. They are asking university Chancellor David Ward to cut the contracts with Palermo’s unless the company hires back illegally fired workers and recognizes their union.

You can boost their cause by spreading the word with a tweet or Facebook post. Here’s how you do it.

As President Obama meets today with Mexican President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is calling for improved rights for Mexico's working families. In recent months, Mexican workers have faced a series of challenges to their basic rights.

Aspiring citizens in New York City are not going anywhere after Superstorm Sandy devastated parts of the region. They are pitching in to help rebuild what was lost. Latino workers and day laborers organized themselves with assistance from El Centro del Inmigrante, which advocates for the economic advancement and well-being of immigrant workers and their families, to form the the Staten Island Day Laborer Hurricane Relief Brigade and other cleanup volunteer groups. Day laborers have volunteered to clean up New York City neighborhoods, including restaurants affected in Coney Island.

Sarah Burris of UNITE HERE sends us this update from Arizona. Burris works in online media. 

I've been on the ground this week in Arizona to help a campaign UNITE HERE invested in this year called Adios Arpaio. Adios Arpaio was a massive voter-registration campaign, aimed at voting out the notoriously anti-immigrant Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, that was led by 2,000 high school students, many of them the children of immigrants. We registered 35,000 new voters, and 70% of them are Latino. I've spent some time here before and many, many weeks since helping with everything I could. 

More than 100 high school students and members of UNITE HERE, Promise Arizona in Action and Adios Arpaio are rallying outside the Maricopa County Recorder's Office to demand the more than 450,000 provisional ballots be counted. 

Striking Palermo’s Pizza workers have set off on a Truth Tour to educate the public about their strike and build support for a national boycott of Palermo's products. Palermo's workers have been calling on Costco to stand with them and stop selling Palermo's Pizza products. 

Palermo’s Pizza workers have been on strike since June 1, 2012. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is investigating charges that the company illegally fired nearly 90 workers in response to a request for recognition of the Palermo Workers Union.

Donna Gratehouse, who blogs at Democratic Diva and elsewhere on all things Arizona, sends us this.

Newly elected Arizona Rep. Kyrsten Sinema’s Facebook feed is full of comments like this one:

I can hardly believe that you are actually going to be my Congresswoman. That's amazing. I am finally going to feel represented, and I know you'll do a good job. Thank you!

The closely watched and very heated congressional race finally came to a close Monday night when news outlets called the 9th Congressional District for Democratic candidate Sinema. As of this writing, she has a comfortable lead of more than 6,000 votes over Republican challenger and former Paradise Valley Mayor Vernon Parker. Parker conceded yesterday.