In a surprise decision, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has declined to assert its jurisdiction over the high-profile case involving Northwestern football players, essentially killing the proposed worker’s union made up of Northwestern University’s scholarship football players.
The case has been a long time in the making, but stems from growing movement calling for reform in how the NCAA treats its student-athletes. A group of Northwestern football players attempted to form a union, declaring themselves as paid employees of the University, and they pulled off a huge win last spring, as the regional arm of the NLRB declared that they did indeed have the right to unionize.
At the time, Northwestern appealed to the national leadership of the NLRB, and it was anticipated that the national organization would either back the proposed union or reverse the local decision about the right of student-athletes to unionize.
But the NLRB instead took a more hands-off approach. Instead of officially coming to a decision on the legality of student-athlete unions, the NLRB merely declined to assert its jurisdiction in this specific case while dismissing the Northwestern players’ petition to become the representatives of their fellow student-athletes in collective bargaining scenarios.
ESPN’s Tom Farrey terms the NLRB decision as “punting on the issue.” Essentially, the NLRB decided it did not have jurisdiction over state-run universities, and because every other school in the Big Ten besides Northwestern is a public university, letting the NLRB take jurisdiction over Northwestern “would not promote stability in labor relations across the league.”
On the other hand, the Board made clear that its decision applied only to the specific Northwestern case, and would not rule out future cases involving student-athlete unionization. Still, a refusal by the NLRB to deal with the case because of state-run schools would hurt any future attempts at forming a players union, given that 108 of the 125 Division I Football Bowl Subdivision teams in the NCAA are state-run.
Though unionizing would likely procure better benefits to many scholarship-earning athletes, there are many who fear it would be a net loss for swimmers and divers. The major argument towards improving compensation for student-athletes revolves around revenue-producing sports like football and basketball.
Though some benefits would perhaps extend to other sports, it’s also likely that athletic departments would be forced to make cuts to non-revenue sports to pay for the new benefits to football and basketball players.
With swimming & diving programs still fighting to avoid being cut altogether in various colleges across the country, some worry that further benefits to revenue-sport athletes could be the last straw for many college swimming teams.
Anybody who has ever played a sport in college has signed an NCAA amateurism form. This is the whole point of college athletics. You are not pro! It is for the love of the sport, not for money. These football players have been given so much that now they want to consider themselves workers. They are students. Students who are given full ride scholarships (and yes, fully funded D1 football program has 81 FULL scholarships so you can bet almost all of them pay NOTHING for school) and every advantage that non athletes do not have access to. I was a collegiate athlete and a collegiate coach at the D1 level for years. It is appalling the direction that the… Read more »
Protections would need to be negotiated for non-revenue sports. Cutting facility costs and coach/administrative salaries should leave enough money around.