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Morongo Compact Concluded

SACRAMENTO, California – (PRESS RELEASE) -- The Morongo Band of Mission Indians today concluded an agreement with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger projected to deliver more than $3 billion in additional revenues to the State of California over the life of our compact.

For the last two and a half years, we have been attempting to negotiate amendments to our gaming compact that would enable us to meet the growing demands of our market. This agreement accomplishes that purpose by authorizing the Morongo Band to install up to 7,500 gaming devices in two casinos and an auxiliary facility on our existing tribal lands.

The negotiations took this long because we have resisted a cookie cutter approach to tribal gaming that overlooks the wide diversity of tribal governments, the different needs of their members and the variety of resources under their care. The Morongo Band, for example, is differently situated from many other tribes because we have a tribal government that administers streets and water systems, public safety and utility services on a 32,000 acre reservation.

We are grateful to Andrea Hoch and the other members of the governor's staff for the many long hours they committed to working with us. We strived from the outset to produce an agreement that recognizes our governmental responsibilities, the economic advantages our efforts deliver every day to California taxpayers, and the many contributions that we make to our neighbors in the larger community of Riverside County.

While this agreement represents a compromise that doesn't accomplish everything we might have wanted, it will nevertheless serve the best interests of Morongo's tribal members and the state. It meets the state's need to generate significant new revenue for the General Fund. It will create an estimated 4,000 new jobs in the Inland Empire. Finally, it will generate at least $2 billion a year in new economic activity to add to California's growing prosperity.

It preserves the rights of our workers to organize according to the terms and protections that labor unions demanded when our compact was first enacted. The Tribal Labor Relations Ordinance (TLRO) extends more rights to unions in tribal casinos than any other workplace. Yet, the unions have never used the provisions of the ordinance they demanded, and now have repudiated them.

In light of the current controversy in the Legislature, we want to make it clear that the Morongo Band is proud of our record of cooperation with the building trades and other unions and that we look forward to working with any labor organization that abides by the rights guaranteed under the Tribal Labor Relations Ordinance. In accordance with that commitment and our own democratic traditions, the Morongo Band will defend the rights of our employees to free speech and a secret ballot process when it comes to choosing whether and by whom they wish to be represented.

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