This walk-through now lives in the hub. Everything here — the lessons, the record, the actions — is gathered in one place: The Business Hub →
LEARNING MISSION
Why this guide matters
Workers protected by rights they can actually name are harder to mistreat. The NPEA only works for people who know it exists.
How we’ll know it’s working
Honest, countable signs only: questions submitted · instruments gathering answers · pages read and rated useful · and more people who can explain how these decisions actually get made. Counts publish, dated, on Community Findings.
The Workers’ Rights Mission
≈ 4 min read · or listen, or skim the bold lines
D · Draft — not verified Not line-checked against the Navajo Nation Code. How we verify →
Data & your voice
Surveys, by subject · the results so far · Where’s the data? — every mission runs on what the community measures.
The Navajo Preference in Employment Act is one of the Nation’s most consequential laws — and one of its least understood. Hiring preference, protection from retaliation, and the office that enforces both. The outcome of this Learning Mission: a worker who knows their rights and the safe way to use them.
Step 1 — Learn the system
The foundation
Learning — start here
1. NPEA / Employee Rights & Workplace Culture 101 — what the Act actually guarantees.
2. ONLR 101 — the Office of Navajo Labor Relations: the protected channel, and how a dispute travels.
3. Hiring, Qualifications & High-Trust Positions 101 — the other side of preference: getting qualifications right.
Step 2 — From the record
Workplace culture runs through the interviews: candidates raised harassment protections for Nation employees, retaliation fears, board-appointment favoritism, and disability accommodation — pattern-level concerns the advocacy issue page and lessons carry forward. Disability Accommodation & Workforce Retention 101 completes the picture.
Step 3 — The safe path
If it’s happening to you
Official — the protected channel
Document first. Then use the protected channel — ONLR — rather than confrontation or posting; the complaint mission walks the sequence, and official contacts are in Resources. (General information, not legal advice.)
Step 4 — Consult and ask
Ask candidates the enforceable question: not “do you support workers?” but “what would you change in NPEA enforcement, and who would verify it?” — the weighing lesson shows why the second question works. Every profile takes your question.
Contribute
Workplace patterns reported by the community become missions: share yours. Progress lives on My Civic Journey.
Signature questions
Carry these to any candidate or sitting official:
- Is it appropriate for members of a hiring committee to be asked to sign nondisclosure agreements that prevent them from disclosing who was interviewed for a position? What does that confidentiality protect — and what could it hide?
- When an employee’s case is still being decided, what should protect them from losing their footing — housing, income, standing — before any ruling? A fair system asks who benefits when the fight itself is made harder to sustain.
- Who reviews whether Navajo preference was actually applied in a hire — and what happens when it wasn’t?
- What should an applicant be able to find out about why they weren’t selected?
- Should a contract non-renewal — no notice, no reason given — count as an adverse action requiring just cause? If organizations use non-renewals to make employment effectively at-will, who checks that?
- If losing a job can also mean losing your home, what does that do to an employee’s willingness to report wrongdoing — and how would you fix it?
Goes with: Transparency 101 · Fraud, Waste & Abuse Learning Mission
Check the record
See what candidates said about jobs, hiring, and workplace culture in the stance record, and weigh it with the five lenses — transparency first.
Part of the Learning guides. This guide explains systems and reports what candidates said; it does not tell anyone how to vote.
The law behind this guide
A · read in the Navajo Nation Code Annotated unless marked otherwise
- 15 N.N.C. § 604(B)(8) — no adverse action against any Navajo employee without just cause. Written notice citing the cause is required in all cases.
- § 610(N) — non-retaliation. Protects any person who opposes an unlawful practice, files a charge, testifies, or assists.
- § 610(A) — ONLR monitors and enforces. § 610(B) — ONLR may file its own pattern-or-practice charge.
- § 611 — the Commission schedules a hearing within 60 days and may subpoena. § 612 — reinstatement, back pay (max two years before the charge), front pay, civil fines, attorneys’ fees, and referral of the respondent’s contracts and leases to the Attorney General.
What we found
The Labor Commission does not publish its decisions. Nobody can read how “just cause” has been applied.
How we’ll know it worked
When the Labor Commission publishes its decisions.
The tribunal, its silence, and the writ that made it sit: read the article →
Related
Disability 101 — disability discrimination and employment cases are free legal territory · All guides · Accountability · Civic Academy · My Civic Journey
The law behind this guide
A · read in the Navajo Nation Code Annotated unless marked otherwise
- 15 N.N.C. §§ 601–612 — the Navajo Preference in Employment Act, read in the Code.
- § 603(D) — “Navajo” means any enrolled member of the Navajo Nation.
- § 604(B)(8) protects any Navajo employee. § 610(N) protects any person. The two protections do not cover the same people.
What we found
The Nation has no general whistleblower act — only § 3767 (ethics complaints) and § 610(N) (NPEA charges). Neither reaches a report to a regulator or the public.
How we’ll know it worked
When a general whistleblower act is passed.