Football players at Northwestern University on Wednesday won a major victory in their initial bid to form a labor union, when a regional official of the National Labor Relations Board ruled that they are employees who can unionize.
The ruling, by Peter Sung Ohr, the NLRB’s regional director in Chicago, has the potential to remake the world of big-time college sports. Northwestern said in a statement on Wednesday that it disagreed with the decision, asserting that its athletes are students and not employees, and vowed to appeal.
The NCAA, which is not a party to the dispute, said on Wednesday that it was disappointed by the decision. “We strongly disagree with the notion that student-athletes are employees,” said Donald Remy, the association’s chief legal officer, in a written statement.
What’s next for the NCAA and college athletes? Reactions and commentary poured in after the ruling was issued. Here’s a sampling.
For the NCAA, Another Push Off the Fence — John Infante, an expert on NCAA compliance, wrote that the ruling is helping to make the NCAA’s position—straddling the middle ground between amateurism and commercialism—an untenable one. “What the NCAA is being forced to abandon is the assertion that it can straddle the fence between both those positions.” John Infante
Definition of Bargaining Unit Is a Key Point — An important point that has yet to be clarified is what the NLRB considers to be a bargaining unit, said Michael McCann, a legal analyst for Sports Illustrated. If the bargaining unit consisted only of Northwestern football players, Mr. McCann said, it would be a big victory for them. But if the board says that the bargaining unit consists of all Northwestern athletes, “we don’t know yet if the other athletes at Northwestern would want to be part of this.” Sports Illustrated
University Faces an Uphill Fight — “Northwestern will have a difficult time convincing the labor board in Washington that Ohr was wrong,” wrote Lester Munson, a legal analyst with ESPN.com. ESPN.com
The Experts Were Proven Wrong — “This decision marks the first real crack in the NCAA cartel in any of our lifetimes,” wrote Dave Zirin. The Nation
A Crumbling Charade of Amateurism — Jordan Weissmann of Slate called attention to a “refreshingly obvious” point in the NLRB official’s decision: “No matter what the NCAA wants you to think, Northwestern’s scholarship football players, he writes, ‘are not primarily students.’ It’s that simple.” Slate
‘An Absurd Decision’ — Sen. Lamar Alexander, the top Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, denounced the ruling. Many Republicans in Congress have criticized the board for its actions regarding the unionization of private-college employees. “Imagine a university’s basketball players striking before a Sweet Sixteen game demanding shorter practices, bigger dorm rooms, better food, and no classes before 11 a.m.,” Mr. Alexander said. “This is an absurd decision that will destroy intercollegiate athletics as we know it.” Sen. Lamar Alexander
