Several tribal leaders testified last week to Congress in support of the Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act of 2017 that would exempt their businesses from the National Labor Relations Act, like all states are.
Navajo Nation Council Delegate Nathaniel Brown told the House Education and the Workforce subcommittee, “What this bill does is it will give the nation the parity that we want.” Brown later said, “It will strengthen who we are as a sovereign Indian nation.”
The labor union UNITE HERE opposes the legislation. John Gibbon, political director for the union, called the provisions of the existing law “absolutely a bare minimum.”
Testifying before the committee, Gibbon declared, “My argument is, and my argument would be … that workers deserve better rights than they receive in this country,” Gribbon told the subcommittee. “Whether they be on Indian lands or not, that workers have been harassed and abused.”
Currently the National Labor Relations Board claims to have jurisdiction over tribal operated businesses, such as casinos. The tribes claim their sovereignty exempts them from federal oversight. It’s only since 2004 that the NLRB has pressed this claim on tribal businesses. For 70 years, this doctrine lay dormant. The board never claimed jurisdiction on internal tribal employees, only those employed by tribal-owned businesses.
If the bill is passed the NLRA would be amended to add “any Indian tribe, or any enterprise or institution owned and operated by an Indian tribe and located on its Indian lands” to the federal, state and local governments exempt from NLRB oversight.
Brown told lawmakers, “Indian Country does not view this as a fight between tribal governments and labor. In many tribal communities across the country, tribal governments and unions work hand in hand to improve the working conditions of Indian and non-Indian workers.” He added, “Within the judicial, we do have a court system, we have our labor relations office and we also have the Navajo Nation labor laws that protect our people.”
