COVID-19

We have received several questions about setting graduation ceremonies to music and streaming them or recording them and sharing them with students. What are the laws surrounding this? There seems to be a lot of misinformation out there. Below is a question I received:

The need to migrate ceremonies online has created a tsunami of copyright concerns.  What is a ceremony without the right music?  But this question pertains specifically to high school graduations for public schools, so we’ll confine it to those institutions.

It's January 6, 2022, and I am trying to pinpoint what libraries are obligated to do for employees with regard to COVID safety measures.  Are employers still required to provide safety implements such as masks to their employees and encourage social distancing? What about providing testing kits at no cost to employees?

Here we are in January, 2022, and frustratingly, there is no ONE right answer to this question.[1]  Between OSHA, CDC, WHO, and NYSDOH, together with state-wide and local Executive Orders and states of emergency, the answer to this question is a big, tangled web.

The library (school district public library without a union or a bargaining agreement and less than 50 employees) offers paid sick leave for most employees. However, based on what we have learn we have paid people, without it coming off of their earned sick time, if they are told to quarantine because they have been exposed to the virus.

I can offer a simple answer, and a complicated answer. 

Here is the simple answer: 

In the RAQ you provided an answer about vaccine requirements for new hires. What about performers or presenters we hire to come into the library, especially to work with children? Are we allowed to ask/require proof of vaccination status before signing a contract?

A library needs two documents to address this issue:

1.  Its template contract or "rider"[1] for performers and presenters;[2]and

2.  Its current Safety Plan.

Can we require new hires at the library to be vaccinated, and if so, how should we word this on the job application, and how are we allowed to ask for proof of vaccination? What if the new hire is not vaccinated because of religious reasons. If the library requires those who are not vaccinated to get COVID tested weekly, does the library have to pay for those tests?

Underlying all these highly specific questions is one Big Question: Can employers require vaccination?

How does the NY HERO Act https://dol.ny.gov/ny-hero-act apply to the different types of libraries? Are Association Libraries included?

The letters in the "NY HERO Act" stand for "Health and Essential Rights."[1]

What "essential rights" does it protect? 

Now that Open Meetings Law modifications have been lifted, are we still required to maintain physical distancing for board meetings? We have a fifteen member board which makes it difficult to spread our trustees out. I understand that we can ask trustees whether they have been vaccinated: If all are vaccinated, do we have to maintain physical distancing?

This question comes at a very challenging time.[1]

The question is difficult because right now, the World Health Organization is looking at the "Delta Variant" of COVID-19 and telling the world to consider continuing to use masks and social distancing while inside.[2]

First question: With the expiration of the Executive Orders on June 24th, 2021, including the Order modifying the requirements of the Open Meetings Law, are libraries back to the "old way" of conducting trustee meetings?

First question: Yes...with the expiration of the Executive Orders on June 24th, including the Order modifying the Open Meetings law,[1] things are "back to normal."

Or, as the Committee on Open Government, the authority on the State's Open Meetings Law (OML), put it:

We are preparing to go to the "masks recommended" phase.  Staff would still be required to wear masks in public portions of the building, but not in their non-shared offices.  However, for those in shared offices, how do we handle the vaccinated/not vaccinated issue?  Do we go with the honor system and tell those in shared offices that if they are vaccinated, they may go maskless?

[DISCLAIMER: This answer presumes there is no collective bargaining agreement or landlord/municipal host terms that impact the library's flexibility while revising their Safety Plan.]

Okay, with that disclaimer out of the way, here are my "short answers" to these excellent questions:

Our postman refuses to wear a mask in the building even though it is policy and a NYS mandate. When asked to, he refuses and because of that, now delivers the mail by yelling "mail" into our building bookdrop and drops the mail inside. If no one hears him, we miss our opportunity to give him outgoing mail, which he told us to just drop in a mailbox down the street.

I am expediting the answer to this question in light of the new guidance issued by the CDC on 5/13 (stating that people two weeks past their final vaccination can relax on wearing masks)[1], because I foresee more situations like this are going to arise.