Articles About Alabama Labor And Employment Law.

The Alabama Department of Labor (AL DOL) recently announced two new changes affecting employers.

On July 15, 2020, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey issued an amended “Safer at Home” order, adding a facial covering requirement. This facial covering order, which goes into effect on July 16, 2020, at 5:00 p.m., requires (1) facial coverings for individuals; (2) protections for employees; and (3) protections for customers.

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey entered an amended order to her original Safer at Home order on July 15, 2020. It generally requires masks or face coverings to be worn when people are within six feet of someone from a different household in the following situations: (1) indoor spaces that are

On May 21, 2020, Governor Kay Ivey issued an amended Safer at Home order that removed restrictions and provided extended guidance to Alabama businesses as the state continued to reopen.

On May 8, 2020, Governor Kay Ivey issued an amended Safer at Home order, lifting previous restrictions and providing additional guidance to Alabama businesses. The same day, Governor Ivey issued a separate executive order providing liability protection or immunity to businesses and health care providers.

On April 3, 2020, Alabama State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris executed a statewide Order, effective Saturday, April 4, 2020 at 5:00 p.m., requiring every person in Alabama to stay at their place of residence unless they are performing “essential activities,” as listed below. The order also imposes certain restrictions on retailers.

On March 27, 2020, Alabama State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris executed a statewide Order suspending certain public gatherings due to the risk of infection by COVID-19. Under the Order, the following businesses are closed as of March 28, 2020 at 5:00 p.m.:

On March 24, 2020, City of Birmingham Mayor Randall L. Woodfin proposed an ordinance to establish a “Shelter in Place Order” for the Alabama city in response to the COVID-19 public health emergency. The City Council authorized the Order that same day.

In a closely-split decision by the full court of appeals, the Eleventh Circuit has held that the plaintiffs lacked standing to pursue their claims against the named defendants in the lawsuit, specifically, the Attorney General for the State of Alabama. As a result, the Court of Appeals had no authority to determine whether the plaintiffs’ equal protection claim might survive on its merits. Lewis v. Governor of Alabama, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 36857 (11th Cir. Dec. 13, 2019) (en banc).

On June 11, 2019, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed into law the Clark-Figures Equal Pay Act (the “Alabama EPA”). The Alabama EPA provides that it shall be unlawful for an employer to “pay any of its employees at wage rates less than those paid to employees of another sex or race for equal work within the same establishment on jobs the performance of which requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and performance under similar working conditions.” The Alabama EPA takes effect September 1, 2019. Previously, employers and employees in Alabama were subject to the federal Equal Pay Act (the “EPA”). Similar to the EPA, no discriminatory intent has to be proven under the Alabama EPA, and an employee can recover the wage differential plus interest. In contrast to the EPA, the Alabama EPA does not permit recovery of liquidated damages (double the amount of the wage differential) or attorneys’ fees. Also in contrast to the EPA, the Alabama EPA requires parity in wages based on race as well as sex. The Alabama EPA specifically permits wage differentials resulting from a merit system, a seniority system, or a system that measures earnings by quantity or quality of production. An employer also may raise a defense that the wage differential was based on a factor other than sex or race, although the final version of the Alabama EPA does not provide any examples of such factors.

On June 10, 2019, Alabama enacted the state’s first wage equity law. The Clarke-Figures Equal Pay Act (CFEPA) mimics, in large portion, the federal Equal Pay Act (EPA), but includes race as a protected classification in addition to sex. The CFEPA also prohibits retaliation based on an applicants’ failure or refusal to provide their wage history and sets forth employer recordkeeping requirements. Employers of any size are subject to the act. There is no small employer exception. The CFEPA takes effect September 1, 2019.

On June 11, 2019, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed a new law that prohibits wage discrimination based upon sex and protects workers who decline to share their salary history with a prospective employer. The new law takes effect August 1, 2019. Unlike laws in some other states, the Alabama law does not bar employers from asking for salary history information, but prohibits employers from refusing to interview or hire applicants who decline to provide such information.

Yesterday, Alabama’s Governor, Kay Ivey, signed a new law that would prohibit employers from paying less for the same work on the basis of gender or race. After both the House and the Senate approved the bill, it was sent back with an executive amendment from Governor Ivey on May 30, 2019. Upon approval of that amendment by the Alabama House and Senate, the law just received the necessary executive signature for enactment. With the passage of this law, titled the Clarke-Figures Equal Pay Act, only Mississippi remains without any state equal pay legislation in place.

On March 28th, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey (R) signed into law the Alabama Data Breach Notification Act, Act No. 2018-396, making Alabama the final state to enact a data breach notification law. South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard signed into a law a similar statute one-week prior. The Alabama law will take effect May 1, 2018. Being the last state to enact a breach notification law, Alabama had the benefit of examining the approach in just about all of the other states and apparently drew provisions from many other state laws, including relatively detailed requirements for covered entities (as defined within the statute) and their third-party service providers to maintain reasonable requirements to protect “sensitive personally identifying information.”