The House voted 249-177 Tuesday to limit the federal government’s ability to enforce labor laws on Indian tribal reservations.
The vote was bipartisan, with 24 Democrats joining with 225 Republicans in favor of the bill, called the Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act.
Advocates of the legislation said it was necessary to preserve the tribes’ ability to conduct their economic affairs, while critics said would it undermine worker protections.
The legislation is an effort to head off organized labor’s push to unionize Indian casinos. The National Labor Relations Board, the federal government’s main labor law enforcement agency, ruled in 2004 that it had authority over tribal casinos, reversing decades of precedent. Tuesday’s bill would amend the National Labor Relations Act to say the board does not have that authority. A companion bill has been introduced in the Senate.
“It is time for Congress to clarify the law and affirm tribal sovereignity,” said Rep. Kristi Noem, R-S.D. “The last thing they need is the NLRB meddling in their affairs.”
President Obama has threatened to veto the bill. The administration said it could support a bill that recognizes tribal sovereignty in labor law and exempts tribes from the jurisdiction of the labor board “only if the tribes adopt labor standards and procedures … reasonably equivalent to those in the National Labor Relations Act.”
Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., scoffed, summing up the administration’s position as, “You can be sovereign as long as we tell you what to do.”
The administration’s position was a reversal from its earlier stance. In late 2011, the Interior Department’s Indian Affairs agency wrote to the labor board saying that it did not believe the agency’s authority should cover tribes.
“Tribal governments should be given at least the same exception as provided to state governments in the NLRA,” wrote Patrice Kunesh, the department’s department’s deputy solicitor for Indian affairs.
That was the standard the NLRB observed throughout most of its history, on the basis that NLRA covers only private-sector unions and the legal concept of “tribal sovereignty” meant the tribes were independent entities, similar to states, that could pass their own laws. Since the tribes owned the casinos, their employees were therefore public-sector workers and the tribes themselves determined their labor rights.
However, unlike schools, fire departments or government agencies, for-profit casinos are not what are traditionally understood as public-sector establishments. The labor board asserted jurisdiction over tribal casinos in a 2004 case called San Manuel.
Critics of the bill noted that other federal workplace laws, such as the Occupational Safety and Health Act, applied to the casinos. There was no reason why the labor rights act shouldn’t as well, they argued.
“This is an effort to undermine the rights of working Americans,” said House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md.
Some tribes, such as the Navajos, have allowed unions. But even those have expressed concerns about the board’s actions. Robert Guest, an attorney with the Native American Rights Fund, which supports the legislation, told the Washington Examiner earlier in June that several tribes wanted to be able to ensure there were “no strike” clauses in their labor contracts since they were so financially dependent on the casinos, a measure they would not necessarily get under the NLRA.
