The National Labor Relations Board on Monday blocked a historic bid by Northwestern University football players to form the nation’s first college athletes’ union, dealing a blow to a labour movement that could have transformed amateur sports.
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The NLRB noted that a ruling siding with the Northwestern players “would not promote labor stability due to the nature and structure of NCAA Division I Football Subdivision (FBS)”.
The decision dismissed a March 2014 decision by a regional NLRB director in Chicago who said that the football players are effectively school employees and entitled to organize. They did vote, needing a simple majority for approval, though those ballots now will be destroyed without being counted.
In setting the case aside, the board declined to take on its thorniest question – whether or not scholarship athletes are controlled enough by their schools to be considered employees and not just student-athletes.
But most of the schools fall outside NLRB’s jurisdiction because they are public universities.
In the end, this is a huge step back for those in favor of college football players and athletes alike being compensated and treated as employees creating a great deal of revenue for the university.
In a statement Monday, Alan Cubbage, Northwestern’s vice president for university relations, said that the university was “pleased” by the NLRB’s decision.
Even if the scholarship players were statutory employees (which, again, is an issue we do not decide), it would not effectuate the policies of the Act to assert jurisdiction.
Monday, the NLRB decided that no union could be formed, citing mostly the upheaval it would cause in the ranks of college athletics by allowing Northwestern players to form a union while student-athletes at other schools could not. Former University of Massachusetts basketball player Luke Bonner had been working with the Northwestern players in their case to unionize.
“In its ruling, the NLRB recognized [that] the NCAA continually evolves to better support college athletes”, said Donald Remy, NCAA chief legal officer.
In its statement, the NCAA said that it is committed to providing support for college athletes.
“Asserting jurisdiction over the single team in this case would likely have ramifications for those other member teams”, the agency said.
Also, the case involved only private schools, which represent a minority of institutions that play Division 1 football. His intentions were admirable, as he never mentioned the idea of paying players but instead focused on collective bargaining as a way to better the student-athlete experience through scholarship reform and increasing medical benefits.
This is the second big win in a row for the NCAA, which was granted a stay in the O’Bannon injunction, which would have allowed college athletes to start getting paid on August 1. “And I think by what we did, our voice out there really helped get things going forward”.
In such a situation, asserting jurisdiction in this case would not promote stability in labor relations.
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Three months later, regional NLRB Director Peter Sung Ohr issued his decision, saying Northwestern football players should be able to unionize.
