The Employment Status of Student-Athletes Continues to Be Tested

The story below refers to private universities and colleges which are under the jurisdiction of the federal National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). However, much of the legislation governing public sector collective bargaining and related labor matters in California higher ed including UC - under the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) is similar. Were the NLRB to make a ruling regarding student-athletes, PERB might well follow.

Athlete Group Tests NCAA Player Rights With Labor Complaint
By Josh Eidelson
November 12, 2021, Bloomberg

A new advocacy group has filed a U.S. labor board complaint against the National Collegiate Athletic Association, in what could be the first step in determining whether the government will treat college athletes as employees with union rights.

The National Labor Relations Board filing accused the NCAA of violating federal labor law by misclassifying its players as “student-athletes,” rather than employees with workplace protections. The complaint was filed Wednesday and assigned to the labor board’s Indianapolis office, according to the agency’s docket.

The NCAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The NLRB enforces U.S. law protecting private sector employees’ rights to organize and protest, and its process for investigating claims can include evaluating whether workers are employees even if the company they work for claims they are not.

In a 2015 case, NLRB members rejected a request to hold a unionization vote among Northwestern University’s football players, saying that doing so wouldn’t advance the purposes of U.S. labor law.

Two months ago, however, the NLRB’s new general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, stated her view that at least some college athletes are in fact employees. Abruzzo, a Joe Biden appointee, said that misclassifying them as “student-athletes” and telling them they’re excluded from labor law would itself be illegal. If her office pursues the new filing and accuses NCAA of breaking the law, current NLRB board members could get their own chance to rule on whether college athletes are employees.

The complaint was filed by the College Basketball Players Association, a recently-formed advocacy group. Co-founder Michael Hsu, who started the association with his cousin, an attorney and former college athlete, said in an interview that he tried to find a current player to file a complaint. Several he spoke with were too concerned about being retaliated against or causing harm to their school or their sport. After hearing interviews in which Abruzzo discussed how even people who don’t work at a company can file a labor board complaint against it, he decided to do so himself.

“I figured, let’s find out,” Hsu said. “Let’s give Jennifer Abruzzo and the NLRB the ball, and let them run with it.”

Full story at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-12/athlete-group-tests-ncaa-player-rights-with-labor-complaint.