Welcome in, today is Tuesday, August twenty-fifth, and we begin with HR Dive's reporting on a second H-1B fee. Federal officials are preparing to propose a new H-1B fee that would stack on top of the existing one-hundred-thousand-dollar payment, according to HR Dive. We have not seen that account matched elsewhere. The same reporting says a source expects litigation against the new fee once it is finalized, much as followed last year's payment announced by President Donald Trump. Read against a sponsorship budget, that is a second charge layered on a six-figure cost per hire, with no final rule and no settled effective date, which keeps next year's numbers provisional. Industry reaction leans skeptical of the stated rationale more than the price tag. Because immigration adjudication is already largely fee-funded rather than taxpayer-funded, some question the cost-recovery justification and expect the courts to be asked again. Early signals suggest behavior is already moving, with prospective international candidates weighing markets outside the United States, and a recurring note in the channel is openness to sponsorship only where the fee would not apply. Also today, the Dutch Data Protection Authority has fined Uber eight hundred and twenty-five million euros over what Personnel Today calls robo-firing. That account says the regulator found serious infringements relating to Uber's use of automated systems to suspend and deactivate drivers. The weight here sits less in the number than in the line it draws, with automated suspension and termination logic landing squarely inside data-protection enforcement rather than employment law alone. Some observers read the ruling as precedent more than penalty, arguing the finding targets automated decision-making with insufficient human review, a practice they suggest remains widespread across platform workforces. On that read, any employer running algorithmic deactivation logic has an early-warning signal here. Separately, HR Dive reports that a judge has found United Airlines' retention of a pilot accused of harassment may have been criminally negligent. Per that account, the airline allegedly learned in April of twenty twenty-four of a police investigation into the pilot's distribution of a worker's intimate images, but did not act until his arrest later that year. That reporting puts the gap between knowledge and action at the center of the case. What it tests for employers is a question most harassment policies leave vague, namely what obligation attaches once a company knows of a criminal investigation but no charge has been filed. A finding of possible criminal negligence, rather than civil exposure alone, raises the cost of waiting. Also from HR Dive, a study reports that companies which rolled back diversity, equity and inclusion programs did not perform better financially for it. In the account we have, a public policy scholar puts the finding this way: large corporations appear to have folded under pressure for no financial gain. For leaders weighing their own commitments, that is a research data point rather than only a reputational or political signal. Reaction has turned less on the profit question than on measurement itself. With regulators weighing an end to mandatory race- and sex-based workforce reporting, some practitioners warn the underlying data such studies rely on may soon be harder to obtain. Now, a few more headlines moving the trade today. HR Executive argues that ending the sixty-day H-1B grace period, as the administration has proposed, would leave HR far less room to manage a separated visa holder's exit or transfer. Following our earlier report on the Salesforce arbitration ruling, HR Dive says the Ninth Circuit has held that claims emerging during an arbitration proceeding can still seek exemption under the Ending Forced Arbitration Act, even a year in. One last headline. Two-thirds of employers using zero-hours contracts expect costs to rise under the planned reforms, according to the CIPD, reported by Personnel Today.