Minnesota workers could accumulate earned sick and safe time to take care of themselves or a loved one under a bill that the House of Representatives passed Thursday evening.

After extensive debate the House passed the bill 69-54. It is also moving toward a vote in the Minnesota Senate. DFL leaders there, along with Gov. Tim Walz, have said they support it.

The bill expands on existing sick and safe time standards and includes part-time workers under the program. And it sets a penalty for employers who fail to honor earned time off under specified conditions or who retaliate against workers who try to take their time off.

Workers in the sewers under the streets of Minneapolis heard a tell-tale alarm last August: sniffer devices detected a potentially dangerous explosive vapor. 

It was Aug. 8 — just weeks after gases ignited underground near the University of Minnesota on June 30, touching off a blast in a fraternity house, blowing manhole covers out of the street and prompting emergency evacuations and road closures.

 
And it was less than a week after a second high-profile alarm about petroleum in the sewers, and subsequent evacuation in the same area.

 
Those involved in the investigation described an exhaustive, multi-agency effort to pinpoint a cause as students flocked back to the U of M campus for the fall semester. They now believe they know where that volatile substance came from, and they’ve taken a wide variety of steps to prevent a recurrence.