NLRB Proceeds Against Soaring Eagle Casino Resort

The National Labor Relations Board proceeded with an unfair labor practice hearing against the Soaring Eagle Casino Resort last Wednesday and Thursday notwithstanding a pending federal court lawsuit by the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe to stop it. The Resort is a gaming facility of the Tribe, wholly owned and operated by the Tribe under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.

On September 13, 2011, the NLRB's Regional Director in Detroit filed an unfair labor practice complaint against the Resort. The Regional Director asserts that the Resort violated the National Labor Relations Act when it terminated an employee for violating the Resort's solicitation rule. The complaint claims that the Resort's rule violates the NLRA by restricting the rights of employees under the NLRA to communicate about union organizing. The Regional Director seeks an order from the NLRB that would require the Resort to rescind its solicitation rule, reinstate the employee with back pay, and "post appropriate notices."

The outcome of last week's hearing before the NLRB's administrative law judge is unknown.

In late October, the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe sued the NLRB in federal court to stop the unfair labor practice case. The Tribe claimed that application of the NLRA to the Resort would violate the Tribe's sovereign rights protected by treaties and federal Indian law. The NLRB responded with a motion to dismiss arguing that the federal court could not intervene and that the Tribe could only proceed to federal court after the completion of the NLRB's agency proceedings. The federal court did not act on the Tribe's request for an injunction in time to stop the hearing last week.

This case is part of the ongoing legal battle concerning the NLRB's authority over the activities of sovereign Indian nations. In September, 2010, another federal court in Michigan held that the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians must exhaust the NLRB's administrative proceedings before seeking federal court relief from an assertion of NLRB jurisdiction to strike down the Band's labor laws as an unfair labor practice. In August, 2011, a federal court in Oklahoma held that the Chickasaw Nation need not exhaust the NLRB's agency proceedings before seeking federal court relief from an unfair labor practice proceeding against the Nation's WinStar World Casino. The NLRB has appealed that decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

This legal battle is explored in Labor and Employment Law in Indian Country (2011), jointly published by Drummond Woodsum and NARF
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For materials on the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe's case against the NLRB, click here.