Work With Tribe, Avoid Turf War

http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=54fa67be-a7a5-4c3f-bc9d-565dd3c1ce71

By Timothy Walker Published on 1/13/2008

The current legal battle being fought at Mashantucket over the National Labor Relations Board exercising jurisdiction on the reservation has very little to do with whether the employees of Foxwoods Resort Casino can organize in a union. The battle is over the NLRB reversing 30 years of federal policy because of the actions of one small tribal group in California.

The NLRB needs to follow the examples of many other federal agencies and work with the Native Americans for the overall benefit of the employees rather than re-starting a turf war that it had conceded more than 30 years ago.

The federal government acknowledges “the sovereign status of federally recognized Indian tribes as domestic dependent nations” http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/readingroom/sovereignty.htm. In many respects, this recognition places the tribal nations in a similar relationship to the federal government as each of the 50 states.

Tribal nations like states

The interaction between the tribal nations and the federal government is handled through the Department of Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs. Just like the states, tribal nations do not pay taxes to the federal government but their citizens do. Each tribal nation has the inherent authority to pass its own laws, tax its citizens, and determine the structure and operation of its government.

This authority of self-governance predates the formation of the United States and was recognized by the Marshall Trilogy of U.S. Supreme Court decisions as the inherent sovereignty of the tribal nations.

The vast majority of United States citizens receive an incomplete education concerning the status and history of the Native Americans. The schools teach that the Indian nations were conquered and the students are left to infer that these nations no longer exist. Until the media buzz surrounding the proliferation of Indian gaming, most Americans still had no real understanding that the Native Americans were still around.

FULL story at link.