Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. We have heard about the fact that the National Labor Relations Act is silent. That is true. But in terms of laws of general application, they are applied to tribes based on the balancing test, and the courts applied that test. That test is a half a century old. The activist NLRB that ruled in 2004 was during the George W. Bush administration. So we don't know how activist they could be interpreted. There are a lot of laws that we have found and have discussed that apply to tribes, like the Fair Labor Standards Act, OSHA, ERISA. They have to withhold taxes. They have to pay their employer share of Social Security and Medicare, and on and on. The criminal laws go on and on as well as laws of general application. Mr. Speaker, I would like to quote from a letter from the International Labour Office, which is basically talking about the international labor obligations we have. They write: ``While elements of indigenous peoples' sovereignty have been invoked by the proponents of this Bill, the central question revolves around the manner in which the United States Government can best assure throughout its territory the full application of the fundamental principles of freedom of association and collective bargaining.…”