Chapa-De to pay $100K for firings

A pending $100,000 settlement for five employees fired by area Chapa-De medical clinics could help answer national questions about how far Native American self-rule goes.

With Native American commerce creating billions in new business across the U.S., the case involving the former Grass Valley and Auburn clinics employees could set labor law precedent, according to those involved on both sides.

The five employees said in a complaint to the National Labor Relations Board they were fired in late-2000 from Chapa-De's Grass Valley and Auburn clinics for endorsing or trying to unionize through the Teamsters. Chapa-De said it could ignore the complaint because Indian sovereignty laws excluded it from federal jurisdiction.

But a recent opinion from a federal court in San Francisco said Chapa-De's defense did not hold up, because the clinics were not on tribal lands, and the clinics employed or treated a large number of people who are not Native American.

The Chapa-De Indian Health Program is also not a tribe unto itself, but instead, a medical clinic system of the Rumsey Tribe of mid-California, the opinion from the United States Ninth Circuit Appeals Court said. Ties to Medi-Cal funds also allowed the court to let the national labor board weigh in on the issue.

If signed, the pending settlement will give the employees $100,000 in back pay and benefits to split, according to attorneys for both sides. They will not get their jobs back, and, in return, the Teamsters agreed to refrain from unionizing Chapa-De employees for five years.

"I feel like an exiled freedom fighter," said Dr. Sara Richey-Luchero, who said she was fired for endorsing the unionization efforts of four others. "There's something to this. I didn't do anything wrong."

Pharmacy technician Lyndly Martin, who now works in Penn Valley, was one of the four who tried to unionize and said the case could set precedent for further Indian labor cases.

"They tried to say 'we're a sovereign nation,' but (the clinics) were right in the middle of town, not on tribal land," Martin said. She will share the $100,000 with optometric assistant Kyle Trampus, who lives in Placer County; nurse Margie Patterson; and pharmacist Sandy Orman, who both remain in the Placer-Nevada counties area.

"Had it gone all the way, it would be interesting to see how it affected Indian casinos," Trampus said.

Chapa-De attorney Mark Merin said tribes with state gaming compacts have to allow unions to come into their casinos. In the Chapa-De case, "the court's question is, 'Do Indian organizations have some character off Indian lands?' The (Chapa-De) board decided to not spend the time and money to take it to the Supreme Court," Merin said. "We're starting to develop the facts."

"The 9th Circuit Court ruled that sovereignty wasn't an issue," said attorney David Rosenfeld, who represented the five employees and the Teamsters.

According to Native American law expert and attorney Gabriel Galanda of Seattle, Wash., the country's federal courts are split when applying U.S. labor laws to Indian tribes.

The Mountain states' 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the Midwest's 8th circuit have found Indian sovereignty overrules the National Labors Relations Act, Galanda said. The West's 9th circuit, the northern Midwest's 7th circuit and the East's 2nd circuit have all found various national labor laws do apply to Indian tribes.

Chapa-De still maintains a clinic in Grass Valley, but it recently backed away from plans for a larger facility at East Main Street and Sierra College Drive after the city insisted on a major traffic study.