The COVID Project
The record
- Jurisdiction
- Alabama
- Level
- State
- Authority
- Guidance; issued alongside the State Health Officer's Safer at Home Order (Ex. AL-017) under Ala. Code § 22-2-2(4)
- Issued
- 2020-04-28 Apr. 28, 2020
- Effective
- 2020-04-30
- End
- 2021-04-09 5:00 p.m. (the Safer at Home employer code's last day, Ex. AL-045; the guidance stayed posted) (read as 2021-04-09)
- In force
- Apr. 30, 2020 to Apr. 9, 2021
- Quarters
- 2020 Q22020 Q32020 Q42021 Q1
2020 Q22020 Q32020 Q42021 Q12021 Q22021 Q3
- Limitation types
- Telework mandateFace-covering requirementWorkplace rules
- Addressees
- employers; specified businesses (all businesses); employees
- Character
- recommendation only
- Collection
- Standing duties: Alabama DUT-AL
Operative words
It is strongly recommended that all businesses follow applicable covid-19-related safety guidelines... Here are other recommendations that all businesses are strongly encouraged to follow: Employers should: Allow employees to work from home as much as possible; Screen all employees reporting to work for COVID-19 symptoms
Penalty
none by the document itself; see the incorporating instruments
What it required
Nothing by its own force: the document is written in the recommending register ('strongly recommended,' 'strongly encouraged,' 'should') and lists telework, symptom and fever screening, hygiene, cloth face coverings and signage; its legal effect came from the instruments that incorporated guidance: the Safer at Home Order's retail sanitation clause ('shall take reasonable steps to comply with guidelines on sanitation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Alabama Department of Public Health,' Ex. AL-017 ¶ 6.c), its mandatory employer code (¶ 4), § 25-1-1's duty to do 'everything reasonably necessary,' 29 U.S.C. § 654(a)(1), and Act 2021-4's definition of 'applicable public health guidance' as guidance 'in any proclamation, order, or rule.'
Retrieval noteRecorded as a recommendation because that is its text. The record states the mandatory instruments separately (Exs. AL-013 ¶ 4, AL-017 ¶¶ 4 and 6, AL-027 ¶ 5) so that no drafter treats the guideline as the source of the duty; the guideline is evidence of what the State asked every business to do while the order commanded 'reasonable steps' and the statutes commanded 'everything reasonably necessary.'.