Welcome in, today is Wednesday, October seventh, and we begin with a Nutter client alert on the labor board's return to the General Motors standard. The National Labor Relations Board has put the General Motors standard back in control of misconduct cases tied to protected activity. Law firm Nutter reports the Board issued its Lion Elastomers decision on September twenty-third, making the twenty twenty General Motors ruling controlling precedent again for when employees lose the Act's protection for abusive conduct during union or concerted activity. Per that alert, the analysis returns to the Wright Line framework: protected activity, employer knowledge, animus, and then the employer's chance to show it would have taken the same action anyway. The same reporting notes this unwinds the setting-specific standards the Board revived in twenty twenty-three, which the Fifth Circuit vacated on due process and remand-scope grounds. The effect is wider latitude to enforce neutrally applied conduct rules, which puts the weight on documentation and consistency, and leaves policies and open cases written against the prior standard due for re-review. Industry reaction leans toward durability over substance: some commentators observe the standard has now flipped three times, and read that as a planning problem on both sides of the table. Also today, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is treating visa-preference language in recruiting as actionable bias. HR Dive reports the agency sued Texas staffing firm Sibitalent Corp on September thirtieth in the Northern District of California, alleging national origin discrimination under Title Seven. Per that account, a recruiter allegedly attached the phrase "only H1B" to an email about a data analyst role, confirmed the restriction when the job seeker questioned it, then stopped responding, according to the complaint, and the agency alleges the firm referred candidates from India and Nepal instead. Chair Andrea Lucas said in a statement that employers and employment agencies cannot use unjustified visa requirements as a proxy for national origin discrimination. That reporting places the case inside a broader anti-American bias push the chair has promoted publicly. For employers, it pulls vendor sourcing copy inside their own compliance perimeter. Industry reaction treats the explicit wording as the unusual part, with several recruiting practitioners describing informal visa preferences as quietly common, while legal-leaning commenters caution this remains an allegation. Separately, the technology hiring picture. United States information employment fell by ten thousand jobs in September to two point seven four million, its lowest level since twenty fifteen, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data cited by the Free Press Journal. Per that reporting, the sector is down twenty-four thousand over three months and one hundred twenty thousand year on year, from a peak above three point one two million in late twenty twenty-two. Following our report yesterday on September payrolls landing at twenty-nine thousand, this is where the weakness concentrates. The same account ties the decline to AI investment and post-pandemic restructuring without separating the two, and flags exposure for Indian services firms whose combined headcount fell by nearly seven thousand in fiscal twenty twenty-six. Reactions lean toward a view that the headline understates the squeeze at entry level, and some read technology spending and hiring as decoupled. Also today, benefits strategy. Nearly half of companies do not plan to make any changes to their value-based care arrangements over the next three years, according to EY research reported by HR Dive on October first. The finding is the signal worth holding: cost-model evidence is moving very little benefits design right now. Among those engaging with the survey, reaction leans toward reading that inertia as an execution problem rather than a lack of appetite, with the recurring framing being data plumbing and handoffs between hospitals, specialists and post-acute care. Now, a few more headlines moving the trade today. HR Dive reports SHRM's second jury trial in under a year opened Tuesday in Alexandria, Virginia, over an applicant's claim her offer was pulled after she requested a service dog. El Dorado Furniture will pay one point three million dollars to settle an agency finding of reasonable cause that it favored Hispanic applicants over non-Hispanic ones, per The News-Press and HR Dive. HR Dive's monthly tally counts seven employer lawsuits resolved in September, including two high-profile employers paying millions to end claims their diversity programs were discriminatory. And finally, HR Dive and Bloomberg Law report a federal magistrate judge has allowed a transgender former EEOC employee to proceed with hostile work environment claims against the commission itself.