Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. ELLISON. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud of my record in support of tribal sovereignty. I have been a member of the Native American Caucus since 2012. I supported the legislative fix to Carcieri v. Salazar, a Supreme Court decision that overturned 75 years of Federal Indian policy.

I cosponsored the Non-Disparagement of Native American Persons or Peoples in Trademark Registration Act, and I have actually stood out in the street calling for the Washington football team to change its name because of the ugliness of what that represents.

And, of course, I was proud, proud to be a sponsor and a supporter of the Violence Against Women Act, which authorized tribal governments to exercise special domestic violence criminal jurisdiction over any individual that commits domestic violence, dating violence or any kind of violence, and to protect men and women on the tribal areas.

In short, I am a person who is very proudly and affirmatively for tribal sovereignty and tribal rights.

However, the right to form and work in a labor organization and the right to have rights on your job is also a very important right, and I cannot see why we cannot fashion legislation which protects both tribal sovereignty and the right of labor.

This bill unfortunately takes rights away from some in order to purportedly give them to the other.

I urge my friends who are tempted to vote for this legislation to ask themselves what they are giving up and what they are getting.

We could fashion legislation to look out for tribes. We could work together. But, instead, what we are doing is simply using a wedge issue to try to divide two very important principles, labor rights and tribal rights.

I am going to vote against this. I hope that all Members do. I hope that people who believe in tribal rights and sovereignty know that this is not about not supporting sovereignty, because I support it. But I believe that this Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act is going to do something very damaging to all workers, including tribal members.

We should be supporting all people, including tribal members' right to form unions, to be in a labor organization, which is their very best shot at getting into the middle class.

We know that union members earn $207 a week more than nonunion counterparts. This is why some business interests, not all, hate unions, because they just don't want to have a fair economy. They want to hoard the wealth of the company for themselves.

Workers who are in the union are far more likely to have retirement benefits, paid sick leave, and other medical benefits. Workers who have organized at their casinos have turned low-wage service sector jobs into good-paying jobs with benefits. This legislation would take those jobs away.

Therefore, I must oppose it, and I urge all my colleagues to do the same.

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