Labor – Tribal Business Enterprise 

Posted: 1:00 am Mon, March 29, 2010
By admin

Where the National Labor Relations Board served a subpoena duces tecum on a casino business wholly owned and managed by a tribal band and located on the band’s reservation; the subpoena seeks information relevant to whether the Board would consider the business an “employer” within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act; the business employs approximately 450 people, one-third of whom are Native Americans, of whom 82% are Band members; and customers of the business include both members and nonmembers; the District Court concludes that the business is commercial in nature, not governmental, and that the Board had jurisdiction to issue a subpoena in an effort to establish the NLRA’s coverage over the business because the NLRA is a statute of general applicability, and, given the business’s potential commercial impact on and relationship to non-Indians, the Board has a reasonable and legitimate basis for issuing the subpoena.

In addition, Judge Tunheim determines that sovereign immunity does not bar issuance of the subpoena.