The AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce have been working together to find common ground on comprehensive immigration reform. This morning, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Chamber of Commerce President Thomas J. Donohue released this statement on the groups’ shared immigration reform principles.  

The United States will always be a nation of immigrants who have contributed greatly to the vitality, diversity and creativity of American life. Yet, like the rest of America’s immigration system, the mechanisms for evaluating our labor market needs and admitting foreign workers—as well as recruiting U.S. workers—for temporary and permanent jobs are broken or non-existent. Current immigration policies are rigid, cumbersome and inefficient. What is needed is the creation of a professional bureau in a federal executive agency to inform Congress and the public about these issues together with a system that provides for lesser-skilled visas that respond to employers’ needs while protecting the wages and working conditions of lesser-skilled workers—foreign or domestic. Current efforts at comprehensive immigration reform present a unique and historic opportunity for American workers and businesses to work together to fix this aspect of the badly broken system.

Donna Gatehouse, who blogs at DemocraticDiva and elsewhere on all things Arizona, sends us this.

Arizona, as the pithy Jon Stewart put it a while back, is the “meth lab of democracy.” The Grand Canyon State has achieved international notoriety for legalizing guns in bars, SB1070 [anti-immigrant legislation], a Birther Bill, and of course, the antics of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, among other things.

This is a cross-post by Christy Setzer from U.S. Chamber Watch.

Dragging a little today? Desperately trying to focus on work while wishing you were still on a beach? Just be glad you don’t work for a member company of the U.S. Chamber of Congress—you might not have gotten that vacation at all.

The nation needs to spend $1.7 trillion by 2020 to shore up its infrastructure, or it could lose more than 876,000 jobs, and hold back the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth by $3.1 trillion in the next nine years, according to a new report by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) proposed a modest, common-sense rule to remove roadblocks for workers who want to vote on whether to form a union. But from the way the Chamber of Commerce and some Republicans are responding, it’s like the sky is falling—kind of like Chicken Little on steroids–with a message that’s become a broken record.

More than 1,000 nurses will be joined by union and community allies in a rally outside the White House, Chamber of Commerce and Congress tomorrow to call for a new agenda to heal the nation.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s (R) assault on fire fighters and other public employees—with the support of the Florida Chamber of Commerce—isn’t going over well with voters.

Boy, you know Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s policies are really bad when a Chamber of Commerce member resigns over them. Turning Technologies CEO Michael Broderick moments ago left the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber.

We hope you will share this special AFL-CIO Now feature on the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire with your friends, family and co-workers as a way to recognize America’s workers, past and present, who have sacrificed and continue to sacrifice so much to improve the lives of all workers.

The Greater Madison (Wis.) Chamber of Commerce has slammed the “adversarial way elected officials are approaching” public employees in Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) assault on good jobs and collective bargaining rights. Here’s part of the statement:

The GMCC supports the work to address the state budget deficit and the efforts toward improving the state’s economy.  That support ends at the adversarial way elected officials are approaching it.  Public policy issues of this magnitude should not be rushed through the legislative process.  Given this state’s long history of collective bargaining, policy changes of this magnitude should be thoroughly debated for an adequate period of time, in good faith by both sides, with all potential consequences considered.  Currently, that is not happening.