One month after issuing a Proclamation entitled “Restrictions on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers” that imposed a $100,000 fee for certain H-1B visa petitions, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published clarifying updates that echo similar updates from other agencies. The USCIS update is available HERE under the drop-down “Presidential Proclamation on Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers.”
On November 5, 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued an opinion in NLRB v. Starbucks Corp., joining with the Third and Fifth Circuits in finding the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board) exceeded its authority under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) by ordering an employer to compensate an unlawfully terminated employee for any “direct or foreseeable pecuniary harms” the employee suffered as a result of her termination of employment. In refusing to enforce these remedies, the Sixth Circuit delivered the most recent blow to the NLRB’s efforts to impose more broad, far-reaching, and more financially severe remedies under the NLRB’s 2022 ruling in Thryv, Inc.
While the new government announced fairly drastic measures on the employment front when it was formed towards the end of January 2025, most of these changes have yet to take place.
There are however a couple of developments to report:
Belgium has long applied an early retirement regime known as a ‘bridge pension‘ or, following the (unpopular) name change, the regime of ‘unemployment with company allowance‘. Under this regime, when an employee of a certain age is dismissed, they are entitled to unemployment benefits until they reach retirement age, as well as a monthly allowance payable by the former employer.
During our recent webinar on Reasonable Adjustments, we received several questions via the chat facility. Here are our outline answers.
Yes, but care should be taken in how this is handled to minimise the risk of any claims.
Throughout October 2025, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed multiple employment-related Bills into law. These new measures address a wide range of workplace-related matters, including regulations aimed at the use of artificial intelligence, updates on paid leave, and amendments to mediation procedures. While some of these Bills will be subject to legal challenges that delay or block their application, many took effect immediately or will become effective on January 1, 2026. Accordingly, California employers are encouraged to begin updating policies, training programs, and internal templates to ensure compliance with these requirements.
During our recent webinar on Reasonable Adjustments, we received several questions via the chat facility that we will address in a couple of blogs over the next few days.
As we mentioned on the webinar, an employer is only under an obligation to make reasonable adjustments if it knows, or could reasonably be expected to know, that an employee has a disability and is, or is likely to be, placed at a substantial disadvantage as a result.
Update (10/27/2025) – On October 15, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) filed a lawsuit against the State of California and its Public Employment Relations Board in a California federal court seeking a declaratory judgment and an injunction against California’s recently-passed law regulating private sector labor relations when the NLRB lacks a quorum. The lawsuit contends that California’s law is preempted by the National Labor Relations Act and violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The case is Nat’l Labor Relations Bd. v. State of Calif., E.D. Cal., No. 2:25-at-01400.
Yesterday the Government announced several updates to the Immigration Rules that will impact business immigration planning. These changes will come as no surprise as many of them were detailed in the Immigration White Paper on 12 May and which we wrote about here.
The key changes employers should be aware of include:
As part of the U.S. Department of Labor’s opinion letter program, the Department’s Wage and Hour Division recently issued four opinion letters aimed at bringing clarity, uniformity, and transparency to the application of federal labor standards.
Some useful pointers for employers in the handling of protected disclosures, courtesy of the EAT’s recent decision in Argence-Lafon -v- Ark Syndicate Management Limited, a sad example of what happens when an employee lets his unshakeable belief in his own rightness cost him his sense of perspective and ultimately his job.
