And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: From: "Victor Rocha" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Today in the Arizona Daily Star Date: Sun, 8 Aug 1999 08:59:14 -0700 http://www.azstarnet.com/public/dnews/LQ7113.html Growth of tribal casinos brings questions about non-Indian rights on reservations VIEJAS INDIAN RESERVATION, Calif. (AP) - Tucked away in these back-country foothills, a thriving casino and upscale mall are luring visitors from the nearby interstate and, as a small roadside sign informs them, onto Indian land. That border, which requires no passport, no customs and no inspection, is under increasing scrutiny nationwide as new tribal enterprises, like the Viejas Casino & Turf Club, attract increasing numbers of people to their reservations. The growth has led to questions about the rights on reservations of non-Indians - especially workers - and to attempts to redefine the limits of Indian sovereignty, which makes tribal land nominally independent from the U.S. government. ``Economic development has been the catalyst and has created the dynamic that you see now,'' said Mark Macarro, a prominent tribal leader in California and chairman of the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians, whose reservation is about 80 miles northwest of the Viejas' eastern San Diego County land. ``Tribes are now trying to put actions behind the words (of Indian sovereignty),'' he said. ``It's my sense that when this starts occurring, those powers-that-be begin to take another look at tribal sovereignty and seem to come to the conclusion that `this isn't quite what we meant.' '' Challengers in court and Congress have tried - and failed so far - to whittle away at tribes' immunity to lawsuits, exemptions from most taxes and exclusion from labor laws that give unions access to other businesses. Congress rejected two measures in 1997 that would have denied federal benefits to tribes that refuse to waive immunity and forced tribes to provide an accounting of their income. An estimated 260 casinos or bingo halls operate on Indian reservations nationwide compared with 70 in 1988, when Congress made Indian gambling legal, according to the National Gambling Impact Study Commission. That development has brought workers who, in some cases, have complained to unions about conditions at casinos. Defenders of tribal sovereignty discount such complaints. ``It's a new set of laws, when you go to Indian country. It is their law, their country,'' said Ken Adams, a gambling consultant who has worked with several tribes in various states and managed a non-Indian casino in Reno, Nev., for 20 years. Jack Gribbon, political action coordinator for the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union in California, insists his union supports Indian sovereignty, but would like tribes to agree to collective bargaining rights. ``The reality here is the vast majority of these workers are U.S. citizens who live in the United States,'' he said. ``They are the engine behind a multibillion-dollar industry. . . . It doesn't seem fair that they should have no rights whatsoever.'' Gribbon said his union is not against the practice of favoring tribal members in hiring. Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine of international copyright law. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ UPDATES: CAMP JUSTICE http://shell.webbernet.net/~ishgooda/oglala/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
