On April 24, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced that it will review a regional director’s decision that Northwestern University’s scholarship football players are employees who are eligible to unionize.
The Board’s announcement came one day before a secret-ballot election, which will go on as scheduled. The NLRB said the ballots will be impounded until it affirms, modifies, or reverses the decision.
Never before have college athletes been considered eligible to unionize, but a March 26 ruling from Peter Sung Ohr, the NLRB’s Chicago regional director, said scholarship football players at the private university in Evanston, Illinois, are essentially employees of the school and are therefore eligible to unionize.
An order from the Board said it granted the university’s request because Ohr’s decision “raises substantial issues warranting review.” The Board said it will invite interested parties to file briefs addressing the issues raised in the case.
Northwestern was quick to praise the NLRB’s decision to look at the case and said it will prepare its brief to submit to the Board. Alan K. Cubbage, vice president for university relations, noted that a timetable for the case hasn’t been determined. “In all likelihood, the process will take some time, and it could be months before the Board issues its decision on whether Northwestern’s scholarship football players are students or employees,” he said.
If Ohr’s ruling stands, it will apply only to private schools since public universities aren’t covered by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Northwestern has said it will take its case to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.
On April 25, Northwestern’s 76 scholarship football players will vote to determine whether they will be represented by the College Athletes Players Association (CAPA), a group headed by former Northwestern quarterback Kain Colter and Ramogi Huma, a former UCLA player.
CAPA’s goals include guaranteed coverage for sports-related medical expenses for current and former players, steps to minimize the risk of sports-related traumatic brain injuries, steps to improve graduation rates, increased athletic scholarships, opportunities for commercial sponsorships, and due-process rights so players aren’t punished just because they are accused of a rule violation.
Northwestern has mounted an aggressive campaign against unionization of its football players, saying Ohr ignored key evidence that the players are primarily students, not employees. The university also maintains that unionization isn’t an appropriate way to address players’ concerns.
“We agree that there currently are important issues regarding college athletics nationally and that students should have a voice in those discussions,” Cubbage said in a statement released on April 17. “However, we believe that a collective bargaining process at Northwestern would not advance the discussion of these topics, in large part because most of the issues being raised by the union are outside the purview of Northwestern.”
Cubbage went on to say that the university “is committed to ensuring the health, safety and well-being” of all its students, including student athletes. “The university provides primary or secondary medical coverage for all of its student athletes for at least a year after they no longer are eligible to participate in intercollegiate sports—and beyond if applicable,” Cubbage said in the statement.
Northwestern head football coach Pat Fitzgerald has been vocal in his opposition to unionization. An April 23 article on The New York Times website quoted an e-mail the coach sent to the team saying, “Understand that by voting to have a union, you would be transferring your trust from those you know—me, your coaches and the administrators here—to what you don’t know—a third party who may or may not have the team’s best interests in mind.”
The Times article also quoted a letter in which Fitzgerald said, “In my heart, I know that the downside of joining a union is much bigger than the upside.”