On May 24, 2023, Governor Tim Walz signed into law legislation that adds a new section to the labor and employment law of Minnesota to prohibit employers from taking adverse employment action against employees who decline to attend employer-sponsored meetings regarding religious or political matters.

Quick Hits

• The law prohibits employers from taking or threatening to take any adverse employment action against employees who decline to attend employer-sponsored meetings concerning religious or political matters.
• Employers must post a notice of employees' rights under this new law by August 1, 2023.
• The law does not prohibit legally required communications between employers and employees, or employees' voluntary participation at the meetings.
• Employees may bring a civil action within ninety days of the date of an alleged violation.

Specifically, this new statute (Minn. Stat. § 181.531), which was included in the omnibus jobs, economic development, and labor funding bill (Senate File 3035), prohibits an employer from discharging, disciplining, threatening to discharge or discipline, or penalizing an employee, for the following reasons or purposes:

1. because the employee declines to attend or participate in an employer-sponsored meeting or declines to receive or listen to communications from the employer ... if the meeting or communication is to communicate the opinion of the employer about religious or political matters;
2. as a means of inducing an employee to attend or...

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