Top Five Labor Law Developments For October 2025

The U.S. Department of the Treasury and IRS recently issued temporary regulations that provide an immediately effective framework for establishing and administering “Trump Accounts,” including broad automatic enrollment and large-scale contributions funded by governmental and charitable donors. The regulations became effective September 30, 2026, apply to taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2026, and expire September 30, 2029.

Donald Dowling says abusive labor practices are a huge problem around the world, and often the smaller local manufacturers, miners and growers within countries that are committing labor...

Sexual harassment can present in various forms, but according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the two most common forms of workplace sexual harassment...

On Aug. 30, AB-1883 received final legislative approval and now heads to California Governor Gavin Newsom for signature or veto. If enacted, AB-1883 would prohibit employers from using workplace surveillance tools that rely on artificial intelligence (AI) to recognize, infer, or predict an employee’s emotional state, or to collect “neural data.”

In the intricate landscape of employment law, wrongful termination poses a significant challenge for employees who find themselves at the unfortunate intersection of job loss and potential injustice.

Federal overtime exemption rules have shifted back to 2019 standards following court challenges to the Department of Labor's 2024 salary threshold increases. Understanding how these revised requirements affect executive, administrative, professional, and highly compensated employee classifications is critical for maintaining wage-hour compliance.

On June 22, 2026, in Mobley v. Workday, Inc., U.S. District Judge Rita Lin largely denied Workday’s motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ Third Amended Complaint, including rejecting the company’s argument that California’s anti-discrimination laws do not apply to its screening of applicants outside California who are applying for jobs in other states or countries.

The first half of 2026 has seen major litigation developments in cases concerning the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), including decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, Eleventh, and D.C. Circuits.

Massachusetts has taken a significant step toward pay equity and workplace fairness with the passage of its Wage Transparency Act (the "Act" or formally, An Act Relative to Salary Range Transparency).

The US Department of Labor has issued new guidance establishing a streamlined framework for enforcing mental health parity requirements under MHPAEA, focusing enforcement on three priority areas while maintaining nonenforcement of controversial 2024 rule provisions. This guidance aims to reduce compliance burdens on plan sponsors while ensuring participants maintain access to mental health and substance use disorder benefits comparable to medical and surgical coverage.

A federal court’s injunction over the DHS fixed-period admission rule nationwide means the existing duration-of-status (D/S) framework for F-1 international students and J-1 exchange visitors will remain in place while litigation continues.

On Sept. 11, 2026, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a proposed rule that would eliminate the discretionary 60-day grace period currently available to many employment-based nonimmigrants following the termination of their employment.

The State Department is pausing immigrant visa interview appointments while consular officers receive updated public-charge training. The agency has not publicly announced the duration or precise scope of this pause.

USCIS is implementing a revised Form I-485 on September 18, 2026, with no grace period for transition, requiring immediate use of the new edition for all green card adjustment of status applications. The updated form incorporates significant changes related to the Public Charge Ground of Inadmissibility Final Rule, affecting documentation requirements and filing procedures. Employers and immigration sponsors must carefully navigate the hard cutoff date to avoid application rejections.

A qualifying Form I-864, Affidavit of Support, alone does not establish that an adjustment applicant is not inadmissible on public charge grounds.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) updated its policy guidance on Jan. 15, 2025, to clarify how it will evaluate candidates' eligibility for second preference employment based...

On January 1, 2026, Texas’s newest law addressing the growing issues of data privacy and the use of Artificial Intelligence went into effect. The Texas Responsible Artificial Intelligence Governance Act (TRAIGA) was passed by the 89th Texas Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott in 2025.

Every so often a law that was passed years ago quietly becomes a present-day compliance reality. Section 24220 of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is one of those laws.

While it typically uses the "Final Action Dates" chart for accepting adjustment of status application filings, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)

Governor Gavin Newsom has signed Senate Bill (SB) 947, adding new requirements to the California Labor Code for employers that use automated decision systems in the workplace for disciplinary and termination decisions. The law takes effect July 1, 2027.