A college team joins a union
If you thought college sports lost its mind when four West Coast schools joined the Big Ten, or when two near the Pacific Ocean joined the Atlantic Coast Conference, or when athletes started getting paid name, image and likeness money, you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.
In February, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that Dartmouth College’s basketball players are employees of the school and therefore eligible to join a labor union. A few days ago, the basketball team voted 13-2 to do exactly that. They want the Service Employees International Union to bargain for the team.
On the surface, it seems ridiculous to say that college students who play sports also are employees of the school they attend, whether or not they’re enrolled on a scholarship. But the NLRB official who found in favor of the Dartmouth players in February made some fair points: The school can control the “work” performed by the basketball team, and the players perform that work in exchange for “compensation.”
Dartmouth has appealed the ruling and also will object to the players’ vote to unionize. Because it can take years for these cases to wind their way through multiple NLRB hearings and then the legal system, the players who held up the Norma Rae “union” sign in the campus garment factory may be returning to school for the fifth reunion of their graduating class before any final decision arrives.
As of now, the players can bargain with the school over their pay, their practice hours and other work issues. This is a gray area in which the employee designation may conflict with NCAA rules — the most obvious one being that schools can’t pay athletes. Conceivably, if Dartmouth and the union were to agree that the school would pay players, the NCAA and presumably the Ivy League could suspend the basketball team from play.
Most likely, though, this is the first step in a process by which college athletes, especially at larger schools, will receive some sort of compensation in addition to their scholarship for being on a team.
There is no guarantee that the judicial system will uphold the existing setup in college athletics. In a recent case about NIL money that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that no other business except the NCAA tries to avoid paying participants “a fair market rate” because their product is defined by not paying workers.
Right now, the NLRB can only hear cases involving private companies. But public universities are a very big market: The NLRB is considering another case that claims the University of Southern California, the former Pac-12 conference and the NCAA are joint employers of athletes. All three are private institutions, and a ruling against them could open the door for athletes at public universities to be considered eligible for union membership.
Which leads to this question: Is it the end of the world if college athletes join a union? Probably not, although it definitely would require an attitude adjustment from fans. The concept of students threatening to go on strike is sure to alienate the many fans who have given college sports a loyalty exemption while speaking disdainfully about the profits, salaries and attitudes of pro sports.
It’s hard to say how all this will turn out. Nobody thought NIL money would take off the way it has. The only thing for certain is that the financial evolution of college sports will continue to pick up speed. There’s too much money involved to believe otherwise.
Jack Ryan
Enterprise-Journal
