According to a Peter Byrne article in Salon, the United Auburn Indian Community is getting away with sexual harassment and worse at their Thunder Valley Casino, located near Sacramento:
In a civil lawsuit filed in 2005 with the Placer County Superior Court, [Cheryl] Dalton, [her daughter Elizabeth] Ward and five other women -- all former employees of Thunder Valley Casino -- allege gender and age discrimination, sexual harassment, wrongful termination, and violation of state and federal labor codes by casino management. A casino hostess, Sundi Lyons, claims she was raped by one of the Thunder Valley managers.
The casino and tribe responded in a legal brief that the case should be dismissed because the tribe is immune from civil lawsuits and its "sovereign immunity extends to the casino because it is legally inseparable from the tribe."
Placer County Superior Court Commissioner Margaret Wells agreed with the tribe and threw out the womens' suit on November 15, 2005, but they're currently appealing the decision to the 3rd Appellate District.
As the Jack Abramoff scandal is amply demonstrating, Indian casinos occupy a particularly dark corner of an already sleazy business. I've long been troubled by several aspects of Indian gaming, such as the creation of fictitious "tribes" out of spurious bloodline claims, the fact that casinos generate vast wealth--often for Las Vegas-based corporations--while failing to pay for the economic burdens they impose on surrounding communities, and particularly the freedom from environmental regulations that allow tribes to build massive entertainment complexes in totally inappropriate areas.
But Byrne's article highlights yet another serious problem with this industry: the thousands of people employed by Indian casinos (75% of whom are not Native American, according to Byrne) do not enjoy the same rights and benefits that protect other workers in the U.S.:
Most workers in the country are guaranteed a minimum wage and pay for overtime, breaks and some amount of sick leave. They also enjoy protection against sexual harassment and discrimination based on age, race or gender. But because California casinos are owned by sovereign nations, these laws don't apply. The tribes are supposed to come up with their own laws that carry the same weight as state and federal ones, but there's no enforcement, and little evidence that any such laws exist.
I'm sympathetic to the argument that casinos have brought economic relief to people who've been suffering for centuries. But failing to recognize the dark side of the Indian gaming industry means turning a blind eye to corruption, sexual assault and harassment, and countless other misdeeds And in light of the Abramoff scandals, it seems likely that a great deal of the profits these casinos generate are being siphoned off by crooked lobbyists and other parasites, not being used to lift Native Americans out of poverty. This system is broken, and it needs to be fixed.
tags: indian gaming indian casinos peter byrne thunder valley
This is off topic, but take a look at this human rights abuse in Cambodia
http://beth.typepad.com/cambodia4kidsorg/2006/01/support_freedom.html
Posted by: Beth | Jan 13, 2006 at 08:18 PM