The Augustine Tribe of Cahuilla Indians sued the state of California on Oct. 12, over labor negotiations that threaten the use of slot machines and card games at its Coachella casino.
The issue lies in a Tribal Labor Relations Ordinance, which the tribe says the state has been negotiating in bad faith and with unreasonable changes. The state has not yet replied to the filing.
Tribes across the state have been negotiating new ordinances, as their existing ones from the turn of the century begin to expire. Thirteen tribes have filed suit against the state over the negotiations, according to Pacer records, including the Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians, which operate the Soboba Casino in San Jacinto and sued in October, 2020. Thirty-seven tribes have already accepted versions of the new ordinance, according to the state’s list of compacts. Augustine’s existing ordinance should have ended Dec. 31, but since the state and the tribe could not agree to a new one by that time, an extension clause continues the ordinance until June 30. Neither side disputes the need for a compact to carry on card and slot gambling, due to decades-old precedent beginning in 1988, with the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act..
Augustine’s counsel asserts that the state has not attempted to negotiate over 11 specific provisions the state is attempting to insert in the new TRLO, including a mandated binding interest arbitration between the casino and labor if no decisions can be made in collective bargaining after a 90-day period.
The Morongo Band of Mission Indians, which runs Morongo Casino in Cabazon, accepted an agreement with the mandated arbitration in 2017.
Augustine’s case is bolstered by a March 31 ruling in the case Chicken Ranch Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians, et al. v. State of California, et al., in which Eastern District Court Judge Anthony Ishii ruled that the state negotiated in bad faith with the Chicken Ranch Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians and four other tribes.
“The State continues to insist on the inclusion of the compact provisions that the Court found to be evidence of bad faith and refuses to provide meaningful concessions for those otherwise impermissible provisions,” Ishii wrote in the ruling. “These actions are simply an extension of the State’s strategy of running out the clock on the Tribes’ compacts to pressure them to agree to the State’s terms.”
The state has appealed the ruling, and despite a court order to finalize a new ordinance, one has not yet been finalized. Seventy-five ordinances currently exist between the state and different tribes.
“The Tribes abruptly terminated the negotiations, offered a compact that included all concessions previously offered by the State while rejecting topics permitted under IGRA, offered a compact that included terms unacceptable for practical and legal reasons, and refused to engage in bilateral sovereign-to-sovereign negotiations,” the office of the California Attorney General’s office wrote in a reply brief in their appeal case.
Augustine painted the arbitration provision as overreach, because the state cannot compel binding arbitration to a public entity since County of Riverside v Superior Court, 66 P. 3 d 718 (Cal. 2003). Because California cannot compel binding arbitration on its own subdivisions, California cannot compel arbitration on casino compacts, they argue.
“Augustine is not anti-union or anti-employee; rather, it is pro-sovereignty, which is perfectly consistent with being supportive of its employees’ rights, including the right to organize and be represented by a union of their free choice, but inconsistent with surrendering to the State’s dictation of a discriminatory labor-management relations regime,” the tribe’s counsel wrote in an email included in the filing.
Augustine also takes issue with the agreement for 10 other reasons, including that it:
- Requires unreasonably necessary payment into a regulation fund
- Expands protections to employees not related to gambling
- Requires the tribe to follow California’s minimum-wage law
- Requires the tribe to carry liability insurance for injury sustained by visitors
- Requires Augustine to pay California income tax from employees
- Holds them responsible for workplace discrimination, harassment and relaliation, even though tribes are exempted as employees from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act
The Augustine Tribe built the Augustine Casino in 2002, two years after its compact was ratified. It operates 740 slot machines, and was renovated in 2016, according to its website.
George Forman, of Forman & Associates, is representing the majority of tribes, including the Augustine Tribe of Cahuilla Indians and the Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians.
