NLRB Orders Union Election to Be Held at Foxwoods

The National Labor Relations Board’s Regional Office in Connecticut has ordered that a union election be held at Foxwoods Resort and Casino, operated by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, according to a press release issued by the NLRB on July 8.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 371, had filed a petition for the election that covers about 375 bartenders, beverage servers, lounge hosts and bar porters; however, the tribe argued that the NLRB did not have jurisdiction on tribal land and it wanted the election conducted through its own labor relations agency, created three years ago in response to an earlier union petition.

In issuing his decision, Regional Director Jonathan B. Kreisberg relied on previous decisions by the NLRB: The Board would take jurisdiction on tribal lands except in matters of “self-government in purely intramural matters,” in cases where it would abrogate treaty rights or where there is “proof” in statutory language that Congress did not intend for the law to apply to tribes. He found that none of those conditions applied.

He also found that the tribe’s labor relations law is not comparable to the National Labor Relations Act in that it bans strikes, exempts employee safety and other subjects from collective bargaining and requires tribal licensing of any union business agent.

The NLRB has ordered two previous elections at Foxwoods, one involving the United Auto Workers.

Three union elections have been held at Foxwoods, all for different unions and sets of employees and all under the tribe’s labor relations law.