Kain Colter, a former Northwestern Football player who helped bring the case to the NLRB and is now a free agent in the National Football League, said Monday on Twitter: “Disappointed by the NLRB ruling”.
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NLRB rules do not offer the losing side a clear avenue to appeal Monday’s decision.
In April of 2014, the Northwestern University football team held a vote to decide if they wanted to unionize or not. Now that the Board has ruled in favor of Northwestern, the ballots will not be counted.
“Northwestern University is pleased by today’s decision issued by the National Labor Relations Board, which declined to assert jurisdiction and dismisses a petition filed by the College Athletes Players Association seeking to become the collective bargaining representative of Northwestern University football players who receive grant-in-aid scholarships”. The fact that the scholarship players are students who are also athletes receiving a scholarship to participate in what has traditionally been regarded as an extracurricular activity (albeit a nationally prominent and extraordinarily lucrative one for many universities, conferences, and the NCAA) materially sets them apart from the Board’s student precedent.
“The Board, exercising its discretion whether or not to assert jurisdiction, held that asserting jurisdiction in this case would not effectuate the policies of the National Labor Relations Act to promote stability in labor relations”, the NLRB said in a statement.
The latest NLRB decision is based on the claim that allowing one school’s athletes to unionize would upset competition with other schools – it did not come to a decision as to whether college athletes are employees.
“Processing a petition for the scholarship players at this single institution under the circumstances presented here would not promote stability in labor relations”, the ruling said. He was later joined by Ramogi Huma, president of the College Athletes Players Association, according to The New York Times.
He says he is surprised that Democratic and Republican board members, all voted together on the issue.
At the heart of the unionization push was the players’ desire to have a seat at the table in the discussions that directly impact them.
The decision marks a significant blow for Northwestern athletes, who won a regional board decision in March 2014 that determined they were university employees and could therefore seek union representation.
What’s interesting about the ruling is that, among the 16-page ruling that was handed down on Monday, there was no mention on the burning question about whether or not college football players are considered employees by law.
Q: What’s the next step in the relationship between the NCAA and its athletes? Changes at Northwestern would have impacted the Big Ten conference, Football Bowl Subdivision and NCAA.
There’s nothing college football fans enjoy more than unions.
The idea that a union shop leader would be able to schedule practice breaks or negotiate travel upgrades for Northwestern football players always seemed a bit preposterous. As a result, nothing in our precedent requires us to assert jurisdiction in this case.
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“Our focus is, was, and will continue to be on delivering a world-class experience – academically, socially and athletically – every day for each of our 494 student-athletes”, Phillips said in his statement.
