Moving in the Right Direction

The House of Representatives is expected to vote this week on the Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act of 2015 (H.R. 511), a bipartisan measure that will prevent the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from wrongfully interfering in Native American affairs. Since 2004, the NLRB has used a subjective test to determine when and where to assert its jurisdiction over Indian tribes, raising concerns throughout the Native American community.

In the words of tribal leaders and their members, the board’s “increasingly aggressive approach to enforcement”:

• Creates unacceptable risks and uncertainties for all tribal nation rights under federal law and to their dignity as sovereigns;
  
  
• Infringes on the ability of tribes to govern activities on their lands and provide vital services to [their] members; and
  
  
• Impair[s] tribal sovereignty and the developing economies in Indian country.
   

Even the Interior Department’s Indian Affairs agency has encouraged the NLRB to “re-evaluate its position on tribal issues and to help advance the federal government’s commitments to Indian country, particularly with regard to respecting tribes as sovereign governments.”

That’s exactly why Rep. Todd Rokita (R-IN) introduced the Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act of 2015. The bill is based on a simple premise: Tribal leaders should be free to set labor policies they determine are best for their workplaces. It’s a commonsense measure with broad support among Native Americans. In fact, as tribal leaders have explained, H.R. 511:
 

• Would provide much-needed guidance to the [NLRB] in the wake of its decisions that treat Indian tribal governments like second-class citizens and ignore our governmental status when it comes to the National Labor Relations Act.” – W. Ron Allen, chairman of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe in Sequim, Washington, and Arian Melendez, chairman of the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony of Nevada
  
  
• “Will prevent an unnecessary and unproductive overreach into the sovereign jurisdiction of tribal governments.” – Brian Cladoosby, president of the National Congress of American Indians
  
  
• “Promotes and acknowledges Tribal sovereignty, recognized by the Constitution, the courts, and numerous laws, by respecting a Tribe’s ability to self-govern within its own jurisdiction.” – Brian Patterson, president, and Kitcki Carroll, executive director, of the United South and Eastern Tribes
  
  
• “Clarifies tribal governments’ rightful place in America as coordinate sovereigns that are just as capable of regulating public employment relations as any State or local government.” – Jefferson Keel, lieutenant governor of the Chickasaw Nation
  
  

It’s time for the Congress and the president to make good on their promises to Native Americans. As Gary Davis, president and CEO of the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development and a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, wrote in an op-ed published in The Hill:

Moving forward, the federal government can certainly do more to help us establish a new day in Indian Country by living up to its commitments to tribes, and allowing them to exercise sovereignty and self-determination over their economic futures.

The Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act is an opportunity to do just that.

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