On May 19, 2025, the Minnesota Legislature’s regular session adjourned without completing the two-year budget, leaving a long list of outstanding bills in limbo. The Minnesota Legislature will now enter a special session to tackle unfinished business. Despite the regular session’s anti-climactic ending, state lawmakers managed to pass a handful of bills that have been signed by Governor Tim Walz and will create new obligations for employers.

Quick Hits

• Minnesota’s regular legislative session adjourned on May 19, 2025, but a special session is expected to convene soon to complete remaining budgetary matters.
• Governor Walz signed the Brady Aune and Joseph Anderson Safety Act, imposing new requirements on employers with commercial scuba divers.
• The legislature amended Minnesota’s medical cannabis law, among other laws, which creates new obligations for employers.
• Other significant proposed bills aimed at amending existing labor and employment laws failed to make it to Governor Walz’s desk for approval.

Brady Aune and Joseph Anderson Safety Act

A new statute, Minn. Stat. § 182.679, titled the “Brady Aune and Joseph Anderson Safety Act,” applies to “persons who are conducting self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (scuba) diving at a place of employment while making improvements to the land, including the removal of aquatic plants” took effect May 2, 2025. Under this new statute, which is included in the Minnesota Occupational Safety and Health Act (Minn. Stat. §...

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