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March 2, 2018 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
WORKERS RIGHTS
Senate bill would end union rights for Indian casino workers
Oregon Democrat Kurt Schrader
joined Greg Walden and 215
other Republicans in voting for it
A bill in Congress that passed
the House of Representatives in
January would eliminate feder-
ally protected union rights for an
estimated 600,000 workers in In-
dian tribal enterprises. The
Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act
would impact not just casinos,
but mines, power plants, smoke
shops, saw mills, construction
companies, ski resorts, hotels,
spas, and high-tech firms — any
commercial enterprise owned by
federally recognized tribes.
The bill aims to overturn a
2004 decision by the National
Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
in which the agency ruled that
tribe-owned enterprises are sub-
ject to the National Labor Rela-
tions Act if they’re similar in na-
ture to other commercial enter-
prises and aren’t providing core
government functions.
The controversy arises from
the fact that when the National
Labor Relations Act was passed
in 1935 spelling out federally
protected union rights, it specif-
ically exempted state, local and
federal government employees,
but said nothing about tribal
government employees. Until
2004, the NLRB interpreted the
Act to say that it had no jurisdic-
tion over employers on tribal
land. But in a 2004 case involv-
ing the San Manuel Indian
Bingo and Casino in Southern
California, the NLRB deter-
mined that the Act can apply to
tribe-owned enterprises under
some circumstances, like when
it’s a commercial enterprise that
employs non-Native Americans
and caters to non-Native Ameri-
can customers.
Congressman for sale
Since then, gambling interests
have appealed to Congress to
overturn that decision. They
found a champion in Indiana Re-
publican Todd Rokita. Rokita’s
district doesn’t include any rec-
ognized Native American tribes,
and in his first four years in of-
fice he got only one campaign
donation from the industry. But
since 2015, the year he intro-
duced the Tribal Labor Sover-
eignty Act, he’s become the
House’s top recipient of cam-
paign contributions from Native
American gambling interest
groups — more than $160,000.
The bill passed the House in
2015, but failed to get a vote in
the Senate.
Then on Jan. 10, 2018, Rokita
introduced his bill as an amend-
ment to an already-passed Sen-
ate bill fixing some technical is-
sues on Apache water rights. It
passed 239-173, mostly on party
lines, except that 15 Republicans
voted against it, and 23 Democ-
rats voted for it. [One of them
was Oregon Democrat Kurt
Schrader; he voted for it in 2015
as well.]
After the vote, UNITE HERE
— which represents about
100,000 casino workers — de-
clared it won’t be contributing to
the campaigns of House mem-
bers who voted for the bill.
Because the House amended
the Senate Bill, the bill now goes
back to the Senate for a second
time.
If the bill passes the Senate
and is signed by the president, it
would be Congress’ first change
to the National Labor Relations
Act since 1974, and only the
fourth change since it passed in
1935. Workers at tribal enter-
prises would still have a legally
protected right to unionize where
tribal governments allow it, such
as the Navajo Nation. But most
tribes haven’t legislated workers’
right to unionize. And the odds
are low that they would do so —
given the money at stake, and the
fact that the vast majority of
tribal casino workers aren’t tribal
members and therefore have no
voice in setting tribal policy.
In fact, tribal casinos are a
fairly new development: The
first was a high-stakes bingo hall
opened in December 1979 in
Florida by the Seminole Tribe.
Today there are 484 Indian gam-
bling facilities owned by 244
federally recognized tribes in 28
states, and they took in $31.2 bil-
lion in gross revenue in 2016.
[Oregon has nine; Washington
has 32.]
The Tribal Labor Sovereignty
Act seems to pit the right of
workers to unionize against the
right of Indian nations to run
their own affairs. But the na-
tional AFL-CIO says that’s a
false choice.
“The AFL-CIO supports the
principle of sovereignty for tribal
governments, but does not be-
lieve that employers should use
this principle to deny workers
their collective bargaining rights
and freedom of association,”
AFL-CIO government affairs di-
rector Bill Samuel wrote to
members of Congress in Janu-
ary. “Where the enterprise em-
ploys mainly Native American
employees with mainly Native
American customers, and in-
volves self-governance or intra-
mural affairs, leaving the matter
to tribal governments may be ap-
propriate. However, where the
business employs primarily non-
Native American employees and
caters to primarily non-Native
American customers, there is no
basis for depriving employees of
their rights and protections under
the National Labor Relations
Act.”