As pay equity and transparency laws continue to spread across the country, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) reminds us that both women and men can be subject to discriminatory pay practices based on gender.
On October 23, 2023, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) issued a notice of proposed rulemaking to amend the H-1B regulations. These proposed rules are seen as a significant step to modernize the H-1B requirements and address issues of fraud that occurred in the previous H-1B lottery cycle. Comments for these proposed rules will be accepted through December 22, 2023.
In June 2022, the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Viking River Cruises v. Moriana allowed PAGA claims to be split into individual and non-individual (representative) claims, and consequently, under a valid enforceable arbitration agreement, employers could compel arbitration of individual PAGA claims. The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling established that once individual claims are compelled to arbitration, the remaining non-individual claims should be dismissed for lack of standing. Justice Sotomayor, in her concurring opinion, warned that if the Court’s interpretation of California law as to standing was incorrect, the final authority would rest with the California courts and legislature.
It was widely reported last month—including by the Wall Street Journal and Associated Press— that the U.S. government is investigating alleged collusion by some companies to “increase the chances that their prospective foreign hires will win a coveted H-1B visa for skilled foreign workers in this year’s [visa] lottery,” as the Wall Street Journal