Saipan Hotel Corp. v. National Labor Relations Board

Saipan Hotel Corporation petitions for review of an NLRB order directing it to bargain with the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees, Local 5, AFL-CIO (the “Union”). The NLRB cross-petitions for enforcement of its order.

I

Saipan Hotel operates in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (“CNMI”), which is a self-governing commonwealth in political union by covenant with the United States. The hotel employs non- *996 immigrant alien contract workers, classified as “nonresident” workers, as well as “resident” workers, who include U.S. citizens, persons bom in the CNMI, and citizens of the former United Nations Trust Territories of the Pacific Islands.

In this action, Saipan Hotel’s principal argument is that the NLRB lacks jurisdiction over nonresident workers in the CNMI. Although we decided in Micronesian Telecommunications Corporation v. NLRB, 820 F.2d 1097, 1100 (9th Cir.1987), that the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”) applies to the CNMI, we did not address the distinction between CNMI’s resident and nonresident workers. See id. at 1099 (stating issue as whether NLRB had jurisdiction over “employees,” without distinguishing between classes of employees).…