[Congressional Bills 106th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 2992 Introduced in House (IH)]







106th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 2992

To amend the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act to protect Indian tribes from 
                       coerced labor agreements.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            October 1, 1999

Mr. Hayworth (for himself and Mr. Camp) introduced the following bill; 
            which was referred to the Committee on Resources

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To amend the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act to protect Indian tribes from 
                       coerced labor agreements.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Tribal Sovereignty Protection Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    The Congress makes the following findings:
            (1) In response to a California Supreme Court decision that 
        overturned Proposition 5, the passage of which in 1998 
        confirmed gaming rights for California tribes, the United 
        States attorney declared that all tribal gaming in California 
        must cease unless Tribal-State compacts were signed by October 
        13, 1999.
            (2) It is estimated that Indian gaming in California 
        directly supports more than 16,000 jobs and indirectly supports 
        another 34,000 jobs in California, while it has reduced welfare 
        payments by $50,000,000.
            (3) Faced with the prospect that their most valuable 
        economic assets would be shut down, 61 California tribes were 
        essentially forced to sign gaming compacts with California 
        Governor Gray Davis.
            (4) The Governor of California acted in bad faith by 
        conditioning those compacts on the tribes' signing separate 
        labor agreements that could result in the forced intrusion by 
        labor unions on sovereign tribal lands and the unprecedented 
        unionization of Indian casino employees.
            (5) The United States Constitution recognizes Indian tribes 
        as sovereign governmental entities.
            (6) Indian tribes have an inherent right to govern 
        themselves consistent with the United States Constitution, 
        treaties, laws, and court decisions.
            (7) The National Labor Relations Board has held that 
        tribally-owned and operated businesses located on Indian lands 
        are exempt from the National Labor Relations Act under the 
        Act's exemption for government entities.
            (8) The labor agreements forced on the tribes in California 
        establish jurisdiction outside of the National Labor Relations 
        Board and would instead be enforceable in State court.
            (9) By signing these labor agreements, California tribes 
        were forced to cede their sovereignty and their constitutional 
        rights to the State of California in order to save their 
        enterprises from being shut down by the United States 
        Department of Justice.
            (10) The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was established to 
        ``[promote] tribal economic development'' and ``for the 
        regulation of gaming by an Indian tribe adequate to shield it 
        from organized crime . . . and to ensure that the Indian tribe 
        is the primary beneficiary of the gaming operation''.
            (11) Labor agreements have never been part of Tribal-State 
        compacts outside California and could undermine the stated 
        purposes of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.
            (12) The situation in California is part of a broader 
        attack on tribal sovereignty led by labor-backed interests.
            (13) The recently-released report of the National Gambling 
        Impact Study Commission, at the insistence of commission member 
        John Wilhelm, president of the Hotel Employee and Restaurant 
        Employee International Union, recommends that Indian tribes 
        voluntarily enter into agreements with organized labor that 
        could lead to the unionization of Indian casino employees, and 
        states that if the tribes do not reach such agreements within a 
        ``reasonable period of time'' that ``Congress should enact 
        legislation establishing'' labor organizing rights, essentially 
        forcing the tribes to unionize their casino employees.
            (14) The decision to allow access to tribal employees and 
        the unionization of tribally owned and operated casinos located 
        on tribal lands should be determined solely by the individual 
        sovereign tribes, not the State or Federal Government.
            (15) Amending the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act to ensure 
        that Indian tribes cannot be forced to provide access to or 
        otherwise unionize their casino employees as a condition of 
        obtaining a federally approved Tribal-State gaming compact 
        under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act would protect the 
        constitutional rights of all federally recognized tribes and 
        honor the Federal Government's treaty obligations to Native 
        Americans, and would ensure that no tribe could be forced into 
        any labor agreement against its will.

SEC. 3. PROHIBITION ON LABOR AGREEMENTS AS PART OF TRIBAL-STATE 
              COMPACTS.

    Section 11(d)(3) of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (25 U.S.C. 
2710(d)(3)) is amended by adding at the end the following:
                    ``(D) No Tribal-State compact negotiated under 
                subparagraph (A) shall include, or be conditioned by 
                another agreement which includes, any provision 
                relating to labor terms or conditions (including terms 
                or conditions related to free association, organizing, 
                or collective bargaining) for employees of tribally 
                owned businesses located on Indian lands. Any such 
                provision entered into before, on, or after the date of 
                the enactment of this subparagraph shall be null and 
                void. If such a provision is included in, or otherwise 
                is purported to condition the effectiveness of, a 
                Tribal-State compact, such provision shall be deemed as 
                severed from and not conditioning the effectiveness of 
                the Tribal-State compact which shall remain in force as 
                if such provision had never been executed.''.
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