Indian Gaming

The Little River Band of Ottawa Indians is vowing to fight the National Labor Relations Board over a union dispute at its casino.

In a decision issued on Monday, the NLRB asserted jurisdiction over the Little River Casino Resort even though the National Labor Relations Act doesn't specifically mention tribes or their enterprises.

“It is difficult to imagine a more outrageous affront to our sovereignty,” Tribal Council Speaker Steve Parsons told The Ludington Daily News in a statement.

The NLRB first asserted jurisdiction over tribal enterprises in a 2004 case involving the San Manuel Band of Serrano Mission Indians. Tribal businesses that employ non-Indians or affect non-Indians can fall under federal law, the board stated.

"Like the casino at issue in San Manuel, the [Little River Casino] Resort is a typical commercial enterprise enterprise operating in, and substantially affecting, interstate commerce, and the majority of the Resort’s employees and patrons are non-Indians," the NLRB said in the decision.

The NLRB decision was signed by all three of its current members. At least two of them -- Richard F. Griffin, Jr. and Sharon Block -- were installed by President Barack Obama by recess appointment.

Recess appointments have been troublesome for Obama. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in January ruled that some of his appointees to the NLRB were invalid because the Senate was actually in session when he made them.

Additionally, the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2010 ruled that the NLRB must have at least two members to make decisions. If Griffin and Block were somehow deemed to be invalid, the Little River decision might not stand.

"The federal government should be doing all that it can to protect tribal sovereignty, self-determination and self-sufficiency," Parsons said in the statement. "This ruling is in utter disregard to the Band’s sovereignty and ability to govern its own affairs.”

The Obama administration will be asking the Supreme Court to overturn the DC Circuit decision.

Turtle Talk has posted documents from the NLRB case, Little River Band of Ottawa Indians Tribal Government and Local 406, International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

Get the Story:
NLRB overrules Little River Band of Ottawa Indians concerning labor laws at casino (The Ludington Daily News 3/21)

NLRB Decision:
Little River Band of Ottawa Indians Tribal Government [PDF] (March 18, 2013)