One of the finer points of TERO regulations is how companies are defined as “Indian owned.” If a company can prove 51 percent Indian ownership, it can qualify for tribal contracts.

But in practice, off-reservation companies have formed limited partnerships with reservation businesses so that they can land large construction contacts from the tribe.

This qualification has provided a loophole for non-Indian-owned companies from off the reservation that would like to take advantage of the large contracts the tribe awards. Companies form a limited partnership with a business on the reservation, and they can become TERO-certified.

An all-Indian-owned company would get first preference for a contract, but Red Eagle found few of those. Instead, the limited partnership provided for 51 percent Indian ownership for specific jobs, making them Indian-owned in theory, if not in practice.

“These white-owned contractors from Great Falls and all over were coming on here and picking up a few Indians, and getting all the work just because they got some local contractor to make a partnership,” Red Eagle says.

Lisa Perry is a reporter for the tribal newspaper, the Wotanin Wowapi. She covered the Fort Peck Housing Authority from 2001 until December. Perry says Indian contractors often lose out on work because they just can’t match the bids of some 51 percent Indian-owned companies.

“There are so many little contractors here, but they don’t have a lot of money,” Perry says. “The renovations (the housing authority) are doing now take a lot of money. And these little five- or six-man crews, all a bunch of Indians, don’t have a line of credit. They can’t get money to (do the) work.”

Maurice “Moose” Lambert, director of the Fort Peck Housing Authority, admits some contracts are not sent out for Indian-preference bids, such as the maintenance contract the authority has with the Great Falls-based company Montana-Dakota Utilities.

“We’re on a service contract with MDU,” Lambert says. “We pay them a yearly amount to do maintenance on all the rentals. Having them available saves us a lot of time and money.”

“They are not TERO-certified, no,” he admits.

Red Eagle argues that the contract with MDU to do the maintenance on the rentals cuts into his and other reservation businesses.

“I’m a seven-days-a-week, 24-hour-a-day service for the tribes, just like MDU – only they get all the contracts,” Red Elk says.

The housing authority uses MDU for maintenance because it is big enough to carry more liability insurance than any Indian-owned companies at Fort Peck, Lambert says. And paying smaller, Indian-owned contractors to do the work would be too costly, he adds.

“We need them (MDU) for preventative maintenance. They can go out at any time of the day or night, no matter the season,” Lambert explains. “The amount of overtimes, double-overtimes because of night jobs, that we would pay to reservation contractors would be way too much.”

But the practice causes tension between contractors and the authority.

“MDU makes big money, not just for housing but for the tribes,” Perry says. “But they don’t have to pay the fee. Yet they are asking this one little Indian contractor to pay the fee.

“This white guy doesn’t have to pay. These white guys don’t have to pay. But you, you have to pay. That’s not right.”

Atkinson says TERO and the housing authority have to make some exceptions. MDU provides such a large service to the tribe, he says, that it doesn’t have to adhere to usual hiring practices. Since each reservation sets its own TERO regulations, the MDU contract is not a violation, he explains.

TERO regulations also say that every crew working on the reservation must have at least 80 percent Indian workers. However, the regulation is frequently ignored.

“Code is actually 80 percent, but we don’t exactly hold their feet to the fire on that,” Atkinson says. “We like a minimum of not less that 50 percent. You have to be realistic. If a guy has three workers, and only one is Indian, it is hard to split one in half.”

TERO lets contractors bend the rules because they have a hard time finding quality workers on the reservation, Atkinson says.

“A lot of the contractors bring their own core crew, then try to fill in the rest with qualified labor. That part can get tricky. Sometimes what we say is qualified and what they say is qualified can be completely different.”

Letting companies bend this rule is necessary to keep them coming to the reservation, and supplying some jobs on the reservation is better than none, especially given the state of unemployment on Fort Peck, Atkinson says.

“Look at it this way, in the depression there was 21 percent unemployment,” Atkinson says. “In the Watts riots when black people were rioting because of a lack of jobs, unemployment was at 18 percent. Look at the res. Our unemployment is at 70 percent. We live with that every single day. If those aren’t rioting conditions, I don’t know what are.”

Despite his efforts to accommodate companies to get them to work on the reservation and still hire Indian workers, Atkinson says companies try dozens of tricks to get around the regulations.

“They’ve tried everything,” he says. “You also have to realize that these rules can be hard for businesses too. They have to split up their crews, maybe leave someone behind and hire one of our guys that they aren’t sure about. I have to take all of this into consideration.

“A lot of them are displacing their workforce.”

Non-compliance is a constant battle, he says.

He’s found instances of Indian names on paperwork, but gone to job sites and the person is nowhere to be found. He also knows some companies hire skilled Indian workers and relegate them to mundane jobs.

A recovering alcoholic, Atkinson sees his life’s work as fighting on behalf of the Indian people.

“God put me here, Atkinson says. “That’s all I can say. Somehow He found a way for me to make up for my sins.”

As a white man working on behalf of Indians, Atkinson has been accused of racism from both sides. Indian contractors say he enforces Indian preference discriminately; non-Indian contractors say he forces them to hire Indians who don’t know the job as well as their workers do.

“I was born and raised here,” he says. “My wife is an enrolled member. My kids are enrolled members. There is no color in my life, only fairness and honesty.”

In June 2004, Herman Red Elk took his TERO fee protest to the tribal council. Atkinson agreed to waive the fee and grant Red Elk a 90-day TERO license. But when the license ran out, Red Elk continued to refuse to pay. And he didn’t stop telling the council at their meetings that the fee was a form of prejudice, intentional or not.

In March, Atkinson granted another temporary license to Red Elk, but he still has not received work from the Housing Authority.

The council also agreed that the fee was unfairly targeting contractors, like Red Elk, who provided services such as plumbing and heating. The council says it plans to change the rule to allow service providers to do repairs and other small jobs on the reservation without paying the fee.

Red Elk isn’t satisfied. He wants the council to acknowledge that the fee unfairly targets Indians, and says he won’t stop his protest until they do.

“I want an even playing field,” he says. “If they make it a fee for everyone, I’d pay.

“Indians have to pay to work and that’s not right. A white contractor can come on here and get work and not have to pay a dime. I just want things to be even.”

Click Images to Enlarge

Kevin Azure, an employee of A & E Construction, rips the siding off of a Fort Peck Housing Authority house being renovated in Poplar. The construction firm has paid the TERO fee. "Everyone has to pay, except the white guys," said Azure.

Maurice "Moose" Lambert, director of Fort Peck Housing Authority, acknowldges there are some contracts that are not sent out for Indian-preference bids.

Denver Atkinson, the only non-Indian TERO director in the country, has been accused of being racist in his position. Atkinson, who is married to a Fort Peck tribal member, said "There is no color in my life, only fairness and honesty."

Adam Colgan, an employee of Culbertson Plumbing and Heating, installs a furnace. TERO certification allows contractors to work on Fort Peck Housing Authority houses on the reservation.

Russell Shields, left, blows smoke while waiting with friends Eugene Hale Jr., Barry Red Eagle, and Art Cantrell on Main Street in Poplar after signing up for work at the TERO office. They register for work at TERO and wait for a call.