Here in California, we’re voting on a few Indian gaming compacts today. (Among other things.) This got me into a discussion with a writer colleague who once worked as a reporter in Palm Springs, which of course put her near the Morongo casino. She questioned whether federal labor-rights laws apply to Indian tribes; her readers frequently complained about this. So I went and looked it up.
Verdict: Unclear! A few federal employee civil rights laws have clauses that explicitly exclude Indian tribes. Everything else seems to depend on which of the federal circuits you happen to work in. A couple of circuits have ruled in favor of employees, and a couple of others have ruled in favor of casinos. Of great interest here, of course, is the National Labor Relations Board. Appeals from that body go to the DC Circuit, rather than the home circuit, so we also care what the DC Circuit thinks. And that fine body decided, almost a year ago, that the NLRA does apply to casinos (and other tribal businesses). Seven months later, the workers at the Foxwoods casino in Connecticut — which I am familiar with mainly through advertisements at Red Sox games — voted to unionize under the authority of that decision. The tribe is fighting it, so that’s pending. Given the amount of money at stake in Indian gaming in California, that’ll be one to watch here as well.
Indian law makes me wish that I were a lawyer, by the way. I am particularly interested in weird little loopholes and exceptions that create big changes in people’s lives. And clearly, tribal sovereignty is full of such things.
Less talk, more rock, guys. Go vote.
