Unionization of college athletes: Somewhere Marvin Miller is smiling.

[Reverend]

To call student-athletes employees is an affront to those players who are taking full advantage of the opportunity to get an education.

 
What is this, feudal France? Since when is being a student worker at a school seen as pejorative? Is there a real concern we're gonna look down our noses at athletes as proles?
 
Edit: The more I think about it, the more I realize that they don't even argue that athletes aren't workers or employees. They expend a lot of effort saying it's bad to think of them that way, but much less time addressing whether it's true or not.

 

[wade boggs chicken dinner]

 
Edit: The more I think about it, the more I realize that they don't even argue that athletes aren't workers or employees. They expend a lot of effort saying it's bad to think of them that way, but much less time addressing whether it's true or not.

 
Exactly.  It's not like they are saying, "we oppose the players being called employees and we will change things to bring them into compliance with the law," it's "We need the players to do just what they are doing right now, but please pretty please don't call them employees."
 
The schools know exactly what they need to do to bring the players out of the realm of employees.  They aren't going to do it because it would mean cutting down on revenue.  It would mean that players could say, "Heck, I'd rather study than take the six-hour flight to Boise to play a game" without repercussion.  Goodbye television revenue.
 
(Again, these are my personal views.)

 

[Gdiguy]

 
Exactly.  It's not like they are saying, "we oppose the players being called employees and we will change things to bring them into compliance with the law," it's "We need the players to do just what they are doing right now, but please pretty please don't call them employees."
 
The schools know exactly what they need to do to bring the players out of the realm of employees.  They aren't going to do it because it would mean cutting down on revenue.  It would mean that players could say, "Heck, I'd rather study than take the six-hour flight to Boise to play a game" without repercussion.  Goodbye television revenue.
 
(Again, these are my personal views.)

 
(same disclaimer)
 
To me, the last part of your comment is the absolute key to the discussion on the previous page about non-profitable sports / Title IX / etc. All any of those sports have to do is not treat the students playing those sports as employees - i.e., don't control their lives to such a degree, don't tie scholarships, decrease the required hours, and there's not even an issue.
 
That's the key thing about the ruling - it didn't have anything to do with the profitability of the sport, it had to do with the way the school treated those students differently than average students. So yes, there will have to be major changes to some of the non-profitable sports; but quite honestly, there's no reason that a mid-tier women's softball playing student should have 40 hours per week of practice / training / film study anyway if they're supposed to be a "student-athlete" and not an "athlete at a school". It just puts the onus of the decision on the athletic director & coaching staff of that sport - if you want that level of control over your players, you have to actually give them something in return.

 

[jon abbey]

I don't really buy these numbers (there is no way that Johnny Manziel is only worth three times the average division 1 football player), but still interesting:
 
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/careers/pay-play-some-college-players-could-score-big-bucks-n79871

 

[McBride11]

Emmert was on Mike and Mike for an interview with all the goings on in the NCAA these days. ESPN link with some highlights...
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/10802011/mark-emmert-agrees-ncaa-rule-food-was-absurd
 
- NCAA overturning the food restriction rule, Emmert said 'it was absurd.' Hey it only took the threat of unionization before he realized that.
- Claims NCAA spends $20 mil on long term disability premiums for athletes, doesn't directly address the proposition for completely covering athletes medical costs.
- Working on provision to cover the gap between scholarship $ and full tuition.
- Adding year of eligibility for students who transfer and then are required to sit out a year.
- Still thinks the NCAA is working... "The reality is that the model serves more than a half a million students every year very well," Emmert said. "It produces $2.7 billion in scholarship support. Are there things we need to fix? You bet there are. But you don't throw that baby out with the bathwater. We have to find ways to change and improve without ruining that successful model."
 
I have to agree with the bolded. What other business has created such a profitable enterprise without paying its workers. 

 

[Infield Infidel]

I hope the transfer rule goes in. The students retain 4 years of eligibility, just in a six-year window instead of 5 years. As a bonus, the student who occasionally end up applying for a semi-bogus sixth year after a transfer will just get it automatically. 

 

[axx]

I have to agree with the bolded. What other business has created such a profitable enterprise without paying its workers. 

 
Well, it's really not that profitable for the schools when you factor in the scholarship costs for the non-revenue sports which is needed to keep up the facade. Now for the executives of the NCAA? Absolutely, but that's not any different from any other org claiming to be a non-profit.

 

[MarcSullivaFan]

 
Well, it's really not that profitable for the schools when you factor in the scholarship costs for the non-revenue sports which is needed to keep up the facade. Now for the executives of the NCAA? Absolutely, but that's not any different from any other org claiming to be a non-profit.

Although the programs themselves may not be profitable, for a large university, having a DI football or basketball program (or both) is key to attracting new customers...I mean students...and getting alumni to fork over donations.  Whether or not its a successful marketing strategy for a particular school is an empirical question that I can't pretend to answer, but that is certainly the intention. 

 

[SumnerH]

Although the programs themselves may not be profitable, for a large university, having a DI football or basketball program (or both) is key to attracting new customers...I mean students...and getting alumni to fork over donations.

It's one way to go, but I disagree that it's key. See MIT, Johns Hopkins, or Washington University, all of which have enormous donor bases and endowments without DI programs in revenue sports.

 

[MarcSullivaFan]

It's one way to go, but I disagree that it's key. See MIT, Johns Hopkins, or Washington University, all of which have enormous donor bases and endowments without DI programs in revenue sports.

Yes, that was lazy of me. I should have said large universities that lack academic prestige.

 

[Reverend]

I have to agree with the bolded. What other business has created such a profitable enterprise without paying its workers. 

Feudalism?

 

[JMDurron]

Feudalism?

 
Did they ever incorporate?  

 

[SumnerH]

Feudalism?

I owe my soul to the company store....

 

[McBride11]

Feudalism?

 
I think the serfs could at least sell their likeness via oil paintings or straw dolls.

 

[Omar's Wacky Neighbor]

Press conf coming up. WGN just led off their noon news with a live remote with the tease.

 

[wade boggs chicken dinner]

NLRB to hear appeal.  Votes impounded.  Link:  http://www.bizjournals.com/chicago/news/2014/04/25/nlrb-to-hear-northwestern-appeal-as-union-ballots.html
 
The old saying goes, bad facts make bad law.  I wonder how the NLRB is going to spin the facts.

 

[MentalDisabldLst]

Alan Cubbage, vice president for Northwestern University relations said in a statement: "We agree that there currently are important issues regarding college athletics nationally and that students should have a voice in those discussions. However we believe that a collective bargaining process at Northwestern would not advance the discussion of these topics, in large part because most of t he issues being raised by the union are outside the purview of Northwestern."

 
Then why the hell does it matter?  Are you terrified of your players going on strike?  If it doesn't "advance the discussion", but the players want it, well, it doesn't HURT the discussion, right?  If that's so, why would you oppose it, despite otherwise being and representing a bastion of liberal ideals?
 
And if the union wants something you can't possibly grant, the wisdom of your side or theirs will be revealed in how you negotiate over it.
 
Good christ, the Orwellian doublespeak here is insufferable.  It's like listening to Michael Kay, if he wielded actual power over other human beings (as opposed to just their ears).

 

[Average Reds]

I am enjoying the spectacle of watching NCAA elders, school officials and national media bloviators fall all over themselves trying to assure us that serious reform can only occur if the Northwestern Football team does not vote to unionize.

 

[Infield Infidel]

It's one way to go, but I disagree that it's key. See MIT, Johns Hopkins, or Washington University, all of which have enormous donor bases and endowments without DI programs in revenue sports.

 
A small quibble: Johns Hopkins has D1 men's and women's lacrosse program that runs a surplus. Not normally revenue sport but they make money on it. 

 

[SumnerH]

 
A small quibble: Johns Hopkins has D1 men's and women's lacrosse program that runs a surplus. Not normally revenue sport but they make money on it. 

 
Yeah, I was actually specifying "non-revenue sports" explicitly to exclude Hopkins lacrosse (my dad used to do the radio PBP for them) and MIT rowing, that was lazy of me.

 

[MentalDisabldLst]

This isn't about the unionization efforts, per se, but it does relate to the general Kafka-esque quasi-slavery that the NCAA's unaccountable regime has created.
 
Antoine Turner grew up in tragically poor circumstances in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans.  His mom died when he was 4, his dad left, and he has been homeless - repeat, homeless - most of his life.  Against all odds, the 6'3" 290-lb Turner managed to raise enough money to travel to Fullerton JuCo in California, and has now got himself recruited by D-1 Boise State to play football in the fall.  A miraculous story, except, he's still homeless - sleeps on park benches, has lost 70 lbs from not eating very much, etc.  And the NCAA has made it clear that nobody is allowed to help him, or send any aid, or even put a roof over his head, as per their booster policy.
 
Because, you know, they care about their student-athletes first and foremost.
 
edit: it appears that in the last 10 minutes, the NCAA has granted Boise State a waiver to provide room and board prior to the start of his Summer School.  This came, coincidentally, after the story hit the front page of Bleacher Report and was a featured story in the sports section on CNN's homepage.  But I mean, the guy didn't even live in a van down by the river.  He was literally starving on the streets of Fullerton, CA, for the sake of the purity of student-aid and booster rules.  It's like something out of Les Miserables (the book), for god's sake.

 

[Infield Infidel]

I love when people get all lathered up and angry instead of waiting like 24 whole hours for something resolve itself. 

 

[Average Reds]

I love when people get all lathered up and angry instead of waiting like 24 whole hours for something resolve itself. 

 
I know exactly what you mean. 
 
It's just like how all those pesky civil rights protesters back in the 60s wasted their efforts, since we all know that if they had just waited things would have worked themselves out.

 

[Infield Infidel]

No it's not like it at all. The story came out yesterday. Boise State said last night that they were putting in a waiver. Last night and this morning everyone went apeshit. Today the waiver was granted. 
 
People today are fucking impatient. Everyone gets "outraged",  immediately, instead of waiting a few hours or a day, for something to be resolved. 

 

[Average Reds]

No it's not like it at all. Boise State said last night that they were putting in a waiver. Today the waiver was granted. 

 
Well yeah, I'm agreeing that all of that would have happened if we had just sat back and done nothing, because the NCAA has a long and distinguished history of granting these waivers without any public pressure when it is clearly the right thing to do because they care about the welfare of the student-athlete above all.
 
Tell me, what color is the sky in your world?

 

[Infield Infidel]

The same color as Boise's field. 
 
Tell me, how long do you think the waiver was going to take to process?

 

[Average Reds]

Tell me, how long do you think the waiver was going to take to process?

 
I've seen the NCAA deny waivers with an almost incomprehensible sense of callousness and obstinacy in cases that were as compelling as this one.
 
IMHO, the only thing guaranteed to motivate the NCAA is the fear that inaction will expose them to widespread ridicule. So if you don't understand that the outrage that you trivialize was a critical component to the solution you are now applauding, I don't know what to tell you.
 
Edits:  clarity

 

[Infield Infidel]

I don't think it did anything at all. Waivers get granted all the time, medical waivers, transfer waivers, etc. Why is this any different?
 
I mean, shit, I worked in a housing office when my school accepted athletes displaced from UNO because of Hurricane Katrina. All their waivers were processed in no time. 
 
the outrage would be fine if the waiver was denied, or if the NCAA said they couldn't help the kid, but before they actually said or did anything? 

 

[Reverend]

Why did it take so long to put a waiver request in and how long was this kid sleeping in parks?

 

[Average Reds]

I don't think it did anything at all. Waivers get granted all the time, medical waivers, transfer waivers, etc. Why is this any different?
 
I mean, shit, I worked in a housing office when my school accepted athletes displaced from UNO because of Hurricane Katrina. All their waivers were processed in no time. 
 
the outrage would be fine if the waiver was denied, or if the NCAA said they couldn't help the kid, but before they actually said or did anything? 

 
Look, you believe that the NCAA would have done the right thing here.  And you feel that it's so obvious that you feel comfortable ridiculing those who don't trust the NCAA to do the right thing.
 
I'm equally comfortable with the notion that your position is self-evidently naive and foolish.  So we'll call it a draw.

 

[Infield Infidel]

Here's the story from the tv station in Boise http://www.ktvb.com/home/A-Suitcase-and-a-Dream-258852821.html

 

[Infield Infidel]

 
Look, you believe that the NCAA would have done the right thing here.  And you feel that it's so obvious that you feel comfortable ridiculing those who don't trust the NCAA to do the right thing.
 
I'm equally comfortable with the notion that your position is self-evidently naive and foolish.  So we'll call it a draw.

 
The thing is, I didn't believe anything at all! It's not about believing they'd do the right thing. It's about waiting for the thing (right or wrong) to be done. If they came out and said the school couldn't help him, or ignored it, I'd line up with everyone else to be angry about it. But before then, no one knows what's going to happen, so why get angry about a hypothetical? In every story I read, the waiver was a throwaway line at the end, when the waiver was probably the second most important part of the story! Talk about fucking up the story pyramid!
 
What breeds the culture of outrage is the classic combination of a.) not reading the particulars (because people didn't read all the way to the waiver line), b.) short memories (people forget past waivers being granted because, well, that's not news) and c.) impatience. "I have to out-outrage other people NOW so I don't get out-outraged later. They need to know I started it!" Deadspin buried the waiver being granted, because, well, that's not a story, and makes their post look awful in retrospect. Bleacher changed the story completely. If they had written "Boise puts in waiver request for homeless student," they would have looked better. Instead, they have to look outraged!
 
It's an umbrageous game of one-upmanship, which results in unwarranted outrage, which basically makes all outrage seem frivolous, and makes actual, warranted outrage difficult to decipher from the fake shit. Believe me, I know I'm fighting a losing battle here. 

 

[Infield Infidel]

Stories about waivers being granted are like stories about planes that landed. BORING

 

[finnVT]

It sounds like people getting lathered up and writing that article may have either caused or hurried up the waiver application and it being granted, in which case i say, mission accomplished.

 

[OCST]

There's plenty of room for outrage over why he needs a goddamned waiver in the first place, isn't there?
 
Why crap on this dude for not playing the system better, when the whole system is rotten to the core?

 

[Average Reds]

 
The thing is, I didn't believe anything at all!

 
You mean, other than mocking those who were outraged because you thought it was unnecessary?
 

 
It's not about believing they'd do the right thing. It's about waiting for the thing (right or wrong) to be done. If they came out and said the school couldn't help him, or ignored it, I'd line up with everyone else to be angry about it. But before then, no one knows what's going to happen, so why get angry about a hypothetical? In every story I read, the waiver was a throwaway line at the end, when the waiver was probably the second most important part of the story! Talk about fucking up the story pyramid!

 
So if I understand this, you are upset because people didn't give the NCAA the benefit of the doubt?
 

 
What breeds the culture of outrage is the classic combination of a.) not reading the particulars (because people didn't read all the way to the waiver line), b.) short memories (people forget past waivers being granted because, well, that's not news) and c.) impatience. "I have to out-outrage other people NOW so I don't get out-outraged later. They need to know I started it!" Deadspin buried the waiver being granted, because, well, that's not a story, and makes their post look awful in retrospect. Bleacher changed the story completely. If they had written "Boise puts in waiver request for homeless student," they would have looked better. Instead, they have to look outraged!
 
It's an umbrageous game of one-upmanship, which results in unwarranted outrage, which basically makes all outrage seem frivolous, and makes actual, warranted outrage difficult to decipher from the fake shit. Believe me, I know I'm fighting a losing battle here.

 
Actually, what breeds the outrage is that the NCAA has proven time and again that they cannot be trusted to conduct themselves with any sense of integrity or decency on the most basic of questions.
 
I mean, it's been less than a month since the NCAA changed a 23 year old rule that defined a bagel as a "snack" but a bagel with cream cheese as a "meal" because Shabazz Napier exposed them to ridicule.  Of course NCAA President Mark Emmert denied that the change had anything to do with Napier's complaints and even referred to the timing as "dumb coincidence."
 
You think we should wait to see how the NCAA acts before showing outrage at the fact that their rules don't allow people to help a homeless recruit.  I think the fact that he even needs a waiver is inhumane and justifies the outrage by itself. 

 

[Average Reds]

Stories about waivers being granted are like stories about planes that landed. BORING

 
You really are revealing a lot about yourself without meaning to in this thread.

 

[Infield Infidel]

 
You mean, other than mocking those who were outraged because you thought it was unnecessary?

 
I will always mock people who act presumptuously. It's dumb.
 

 
So if I understand this, you are upset because people didn't give the NCAA the benefit of the doubt?

 
First, I'm not defending what the NCAA has done in the past. Have they done stupid shit in the past? Absolutely, and it was all bullshit, including the food thing with Shabbazz.
 
I'm defending the act of reserving judgment in the internet age. I don't understand passing judgment on something before it actually happens. Getting mad at what you think might potentially happen because of preconceived notions is silly. Why not wait untill you have all the info?
 

 
You think we should wait to see how the NCAA acts before showing outrage at the fact that their rules don't allow people to help a homeless recruit.  I think the fact that he even needs a waiver is inhumane and justifies the outrage by itself. 

 
I don't think you know how waivers work. The rules do allow them to help a homeless student, just like it allowed them to help the athletes displaced after Katrina. Over 100 athletes got waivers after Katrina. They were allowed to start classes in late September, after the drop/add. To get that, they had to file an "inhumane" waiver, which consisted of going to an office and filling out a form. Some faxed it in before they arrived on campus. Many of them were already in their classes. 
 
I have, personally, helped kids like this kid move into dorms before classes start. Kids with wives, kids with children sometimes. It's a thing that happens often. The school has to file a waiver because, in the past, other schools/booster have been bad apples and given stuff to players to woo them during recruiting, or bogus jobs, etc. You know that those things occurred in the past and probably still occur. It was absolutely lawless. Then it got too heavy-handed, now it's swinging back and will ideally find a satisfactory middle ground. But internet warriors will still complain about it because that's what internet warriors do. 
 
As long as nothing fishy is going on, they almost always grant waivers in these situations. But that's not news. 

 

[Infield Infidel]

 
You really are revealing a lot about yourself without meaning to in this thread.

 
You revealed that you don't get sarcasm without smilies. 
 
Flying is amazing, just like what this kid is accomplishing. 
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3dYS7PcAG4

 

[MentalDisabldLst]

First, I'm not defending what the NCAA has done in the past. Have they done stupid shit in the past? Absolutely, and it was all bullshit, including the food thing with Shabbazz.
 
I'm defending the act of reserving judgment in the internet age. I don't understand passing judgment on something before it actually happens. Getting mad at what you think might potentially happen because of preconceived notions is silly. Why not wait untill you have all the info?

 
Well, first off, I think a lot of stories over the years have detailed why the NCAA doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt on doing the right thing first and foremost and worrying later about the business consequences.  There's the Todd O'Brien affair at St Joe's, or that of Andrew Oliver from 2008, or James Paxton.  Perhaps you'd prefer the story of Joseph Agnew, as told by Taylor Branch:
 

Spoiler

“When you dream about playing in college,” Joseph Agnew told me not long ago, “you don’t ever think about being in a lawsuit.” Agnew, a student at Rice University in Houston, had been cut from the football team and had his scholarship revoked by Rice before his senior year, meaning that he faced at least $35,000 in tuition and other bills if he wanted to complete his degree in sociology. Bereft of his scholarship, he was flailing about for help when he discovered the National College Players Association, which claims 7,000 active members and seeks modest reforms such as safety guidelines and better death benefits for college athletes. Agnew was struck by the NCPA scholarship data on players from top Division I basketball teams, which showed that 22 percent were not renewed from 2008 to 2009—the same fate he had suffered.
 
In October 2010, Agnew filed a class-action antitrust suit over the cancellation of his scholarship and to remove the cap on the total number of scholarships that can be awarded by NCAA schools. In his suit, Agnew did not claim the right to free tuition. He merely asked the federal court to strike down an NCAA rule, dating to 1973, that prohibited colleges and universities from offering any athletic scholarship longer than a one-year commitment, to be renewed or not, unilaterally, by the school—which in practice means that coaches get to decide each year whose scholarships to renew or cancel. (After the coach who had recruited Agnew had moved on to Tulsa, the new Rice coach switched Agnew’s scholarship to a recruit of his own.) Agnew argued that without the one-year rule, he would have been free to bargain with all eight colleges that had recruited him, and each college could have decided how long to guarantee his scholarship.
 
Agnew’s suit rested on a claim of an NCAA antitrust violation combined with a laudable academic goal—making it possible for students to finish their educations. Around the same time, lawyers from President Obama’s Justice Department initiated a series of meetings with NCAA officials and universities in which they asked what possible educational rationale there was for allowing the NCAA—an organization that did not itself pay for scholarships—to impose a blanket restriction on the length of scholarships offered by colleges. Tidbits leaked into the press. In response, the NCAA contended that an athletic scholarship was a “merit award” that should be reviewed annually, presumably because the degree of “merit” could change. Justice Department lawyers reportedly suggested that a free market in scholarships would expand learning opportunities in accord with the stated rationale for the NCAA’s tax-exempt status—that it promotes education through athletics. The one-year rule effectively allows colleges to cut underperforming “student-athletes,” just as pro sports teams cut their players. “Plenty of them don’t stay in school,” said one of Agnew’s lawyers, Stuart Paynter. “They’re just gone. You might as well shoot them in the head.”
 
Agnew’s lawsuit has made him a pariah to former friends in the athletic department at Rice, where everyone identified so thoroughly with the NCAA that they seemed to feel he was attacking them personally. But if the premise of Agnew’s case is upheld by the courts, it will make a sham of the NCAA’s claim that its highest priority is protecting education.

 
We can lament the destroyed lives of young kids in many situations from years past, but when presented with one that's occurring right now, as we speak, it does spur most sympathetic people to a little more outrage than over a past event.
 
I edited my post as soon as I learned of the remedial action.  But I don't regret the initial post.  The guy has been homeless for 4 weeks and would have been homeless another 3 until June 6th, after having been in and out of ghettos and park benches for most of his youth.  The farcical quasi-judicial disciplinary process that the NCAA has (the fear of which made Boise State not lend help immediately, or let others do so) has led to results that would be funny if they weren't so tragic.  I think public shaming is in order, even if they went out of their way to fix this one public-relations nightmare before it got too big.  The facts have changed, and I say it's a less-bad outcome now, but the fact that the situation exists at all is still worth some outrage.

 

[MentalDisabldLst]

Anyone doubting that these athletes should unionize and demand benefits ought to feast on the Atlantic Monthly's lengthy, well-researched piece on this from a year ago.
 
And if you're not yet convinced that the NCAA is a festering sore on our attempts to actually achieve the goals of higher education, have this St Joe's story for dessert.

 
Update: the founding chairman of the NCAA, Walter Byers, has died at 93.  Pity he didn't live long enough to see his life's work crumble with respect to Div 1 basketball and football.
 
I wonder what Taylor Branch thinks of the unionization effort.

 

[wade boggs chicken dinner]

I know court cases are not that easy to follow since they take months and even years (as with the NLRB) between any substantive events, but I just ran across this blog - http://sportslawinsider.com/category/ncaa/ - that apparently keeps up with the various antitrust and other litigation against the NCAA (in addition to other sports law).
 
Between the O'Bannon case, the NW NLRB ruling, and the various anti-trust lawsuits filed against it, the NCAA must be employing a good number of lawyers.

 

[wade boggs chicken dinner]

NLRB declines jurisidiction in NW case and dismisses petition.  http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2015/08/17/northwestern-union-vote-nlrb-football/31647545/
 
Note that the petition appears to have been dismissed primarily on policy grounds and the NLRB explicitly did not reach the issue of whether college football players were athletes.
 
Apparently there is no appeal rights from this decision. 
 
Bloomberg article:  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-17/northwestern-football-players-cannot-form-a-union-nlrb-rules

 

[Billy R Ford]

Terrible decision, that's pretty disappointing. "Foster instability," really? The racket is fine as long as it's a stable racket?

 

[IdiotKicker]

Terrible decision, that's pretty disappointing. "Foster instability," really? The racket is fine as long as it's a stable racket?

As much as I would like to see college athletes getting paid, this does make sense from a legal standpoint. The main point they made was that you can't collectively bargain as a single team if no other team has those rights. In short, it seems to be saying "Get people from every team and potentially every sport and then maybe we have something to work with here. But we're still stodgy and trying to backwards-rationalize this, so maybe not."

I'll have a longer piece up on this later this week probably.

 

[Harry Hooper]

As much as I would like to see college athletes getting paid, this does make sense from a legal standpoint. The main point they made was that you can't collectively bargain as a single team if no other team has those rights. In short, it seems to be saying "Get people from every team and potentially every sport and then maybe we have something to work with here. But we're still stodgy and trying to backwards-rationalize this, so maybe not."

I'll have a longer piece up on this later this week probably.

 
So the first factory that got unionized should not have been allowed under the NLRB's purview? Or, within one factory, the delivery drivers can't unionize unless the metalworkers do too? Weirdness.

 

[WayBackVazquez]

So the first factory that got unionized should not have been allowed under the NLRB's purview? Or, within one factory, the delivery drivers can't unionize unless the metalworkers do too? Weirdness.

More like, the Red Sox can't unionize if the rest of the teams in the American League or MLB aren't (or can't, pursuant to the NLRB's mandate from Congress) unionized. Because there is a "symbiotic relationship" (based on their necessary interaction) between NU and the rest of the Schools in the Big Ten, as well as the other conferences in the Big Ten. Such that labor issues related to Northwestern (the only private school in the Big Ten) directly affect the other schools.

 

[Harry Hooper]

More like, the Red Sox can't unionize if the rest of the teams in the American League or MLB aren't (or can't, pursuant to the NLRB's mandate from Congress) unionized. Because there is a "symbiotic relationship" (based on their necessary interaction) between NU and the rest of the Schools in the Big Ten, as well as the other conferences in the Big Ten. Such that labor issues related to Northwestern (the only private school in the Big Ten) directly affect the other schools.

 
 
Thanks, so it needs to be a larger move, say all the teams in the SEC for example, to even have a chance with the NLRB? Or does it have to address all NCAA football (or even all NCAA sports) right from the start?

 

[Billy R Ford]

Full disclosure: this was written by one of my law professors, who I know to be pro-labor in general, but he seems pretty confident the NLRB made the wrong call:
 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roger-i-abrams/labor-board-punts-on-nort_b_8016084.html
 

The Labor Board offers little more by way of explanation, other than that it had never before been asked to assert jurisdiction in a case involving college athletes. That is true, but, from its earliest days, the Labor Board has always been presented by cases of "first impression."
 
...
 
The Labor Board says that bargaining between one team and one school "would likely have ramifications for other teams." This is always the case with collective bargaining. If one employer in a non-unionized industry is compelled by law to bargain collectively with a union of its employees, that "would likely have ramifications" for other employers. That has never stopped the Labor Board in the past, because the Labor Act protects the employees' right to organize.

 
If the standard is the majority of FBS teams all have to unionize at once, then that's never going to happen because it's an absurd standard. Imagine trying to unionize every factory in an industry at once, or every hotel staff in a state. If the NLRB didn't want to let them unionize, it would have made more sense to just say they aren't employees.