In a landmark ruling, U.S. Judge Paul Crotty of the Southern District of New York issued an injunction today requiring all NFL teams and owners to stop seeking to reduce the workers’ compensation benefits due to former NFL players as a result of injuries they suffered while playing the game.

The nation’s richest are trying to sell us on yet another shell game to keep from paying their fair share of taxes. Their lobbyists are pushing a so-called repatriation tax holiday—a huge cut in the tax rate on money companies are holding outside of the country.

The battle over workers’ rights moves from state capitols to Capitol Hill next week when House Republicans will try to repeal rules that guarantee fair and democratic elections for workers who want to form unions.

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire March 25, President Obama issued a proclamation in honor of this day and is calling on ”all Americans to participate in ceremonies and activities in memory of those who have been killed due to unsafe working conditions.” The president recognized the nation’s continued need for  job saftey and collective bargaining a century after the disaster that killed 146 young, mostly immigrant women.

A former employee at Massey Energy Co.’s Upper Big Branch mine who conducted vital safety inspections was charged yesterday with using a false foreman’s license and lying to federal investigators who are probing the April 5, 2010, explosion that killed 29 coal miners.

In a show of cross-border solidarity today, Canadian union members joined their U.S. counterparts in a march and rally at the Vancouver, B.C., shareholder meeting of a Canadian bank that bought the Wisconsin bank where top executives gave big campaign contributions to Gov. Scott Walker (R). Those execs now are about to pop open their “golden parachutes.”

So much is going on around the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, we want to recap the events we listed last week and point out a few more highlights.  The Labor Department announced today a mobile-optimized website to commemorate the anniversary, featuring an audio tour and background of the event. When you travel to one of the locations for the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire you can listen to an audio description of the location by clicking on the link within the page. Check out the site and get more info on the audio tour here.

Hundreds of workers, religious leaders, community activists and farm worker advocates rallied and protested in 200 cities across the couintry today to demand that JP Morgan Chase respect the basic human rights of people to have decent places to live and work.

Two recent items on the economy struck home in the past few days. One, the United States no longer is the world’s major goods producer. Our nation has now been eclipsed by China, which ended the United States’ 110-year run as the largest goods producer.

Fresh from stealing workers’ rights to bargain for good, middle-class jobs, Wisconsin’s Republican state legislators were met by hundreds of  protesters tonight in Washington, D.C.