By admin 
The Wilton Rancheria’s request for the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its labor dispute at Sky River Casino was denied this week, a development that the local hotel and casino workers’ union marked as a win, though the groups still await a resolution in a separate lawsuit moving through district court.
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The denial was the latest move in a yearslong legal dispute over whether Unite Here Local 49 must be recognized as the Sky River workers’ labor representative. In the summer of 2023, the union informed the casino that a majority of its workers had signed union authorization cards. The Wilton Rancheria have since argued that the tribe’s labor code requires the union to hold an election among the workers. The union has held a series of protests outside the casino this year, drawing customers’ and local residents’ attention to the issue.
In April, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion upholding an arbitrator’s findings that the union may follow the card-signing process as a path to represent the workers. The casino filed a petition in July requesting the U.S. Supreme Court review the case. Monday, the petition was denied.
The groups still await a resolution in the separate, district court case, in which the casino also challenged an arbitrator’s decision in the dispute.
The union said in a statement this week that it was optimistic the district court would also act in its favor.
“Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has denied Sky River’s petition… the tribe should honor its agreement and bargain a fair contract with workers,” the union said in a statement.
Cammeron Hodson, president of the Wilton Rancheria’s gaming authority, said the tribe’s labor ordinance offers a “fair, transparent and lawful” process, which the union must follow. The case, he said, raised fundamental issues of sovereignty, and tribes’ rights to enact and enforce their own laws.
“As a sovereign Nation, Wilton Rancheria will always fight to protect and preserve our Tribal Law, governance and sovereignty,” Hodson said in a statement. “While we are disappointed that the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear this case, our commitment to those principles remains unchanged.”
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The Wilton Rancheria, he continued, as a sovereign nation, would “explore our own legal avenues where the U.S. Supreme Court has fallen short of fully recognizing our right to self-govern.”
Wilton Rancheria lost its federal recognition — and its autonomy to govern — in 1959, through the California Rancheria Termination Acts. The tribe regained its recognition in 2009 and today it has more than 1,000 members, many in the Sacramento region.
The dispute with the union dates back to 2017 when, as the Wilton Rancheria sought a state agreement to establish Sky River Casino, it signed a contract with the union that said Unite Here could represent the future casino’s workers by obtaining a majority of signed union authorization cards.
Six years later, in 2023, about a year after the casino opened, the union said it had secured authorization cards from a majority. The casino has since argued that, as detailed in the tribe’s labor law, the union must hold an election among the workers.
Attorneys for the Wilton Rancheria have argued that the 2017 agreement explicitly said the tribe’s code would govern labor relations at the casino, and disregarding that labor code would disregard the tribe’s sovereignty.
The union has argued that it followed the process laid out in that agreement, and an election would extend an already prolonged process, and raise opportunities for complications and appeals.
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