Unionized College Athletes?
Joe Nocera, NYT
JAN. 31, 2014
Kain Colter is a senior at Northwestern University, a pre-med student majoring in psychology with a 3.1 grade-point average. For the last two years, he has also been the starting quarterback for the university’s football team, where he has shown himself to be a real leader and, in the words of his academic adviser, “a wonderful example of a true student-athlete.”
One of the classes he took at Northwestern was about the modern workplace. “We were talking about unions,” he recalls. “About the steelworkers’ union, and the professional sports unions. And the teacher said it was too bad you guys don’t have the kind of protections a union can negotiate.” By “you guys,” of course, the professor meant college athletes. The lightbulb went on in Colter’s head.
As an illustration of the power of an education, this story is downright heartwarming. But it could be a lot more. There is at least a chance — one doesn’t want to get too carried away at this early stage — that it could wind up triggering a momentous change in the way big-time college athletics operates. On Tuesday, Colter and the majority of his teammates petitioned the National Labor Relations Board for the right to form a union.
Does a union for college athletes seem far-fetched? If it does, that’s in large part because the N.C.A.A. has done such a good job over the decades of convincing America — and the courts — that because the athletes are students, they can’t possibly also be employees.
(More here.)
JAN. 31, 2014
Kain Colter is a senior at Northwestern University, a pre-med student majoring in psychology with a 3.1 grade-point average. For the last two years, he has also been the starting quarterback for the university’s football team, where he has shown himself to be a real leader and, in the words of his academic adviser, “a wonderful example of a true student-athlete.”
One of the classes he took at Northwestern was about the modern workplace. “We were talking about unions,” he recalls. “About the steelworkers’ union, and the professional sports unions. And the teacher said it was too bad you guys don’t have the kind of protections a union can negotiate.” By “you guys,” of course, the professor meant college athletes. The lightbulb went on in Colter’s head.
As an illustration of the power of an education, this story is downright heartwarming. But it could be a lot more. There is at least a chance — one doesn’t want to get too carried away at this early stage — that it could wind up triggering a momentous change in the way big-time college athletics operates. On Tuesday, Colter and the majority of his teammates petitioned the National Labor Relations Board for the right to form a union.
Does a union for college athletes seem far-fetched? If it does, that’s in large part because the N.C.A.A. has done such a good job over the decades of convincing America — and the courts — that because the athletes are students, they can’t possibly also be employees.
(More here.)
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