Northwestern football players move to create CFB Union

[dcpony]

Food for thought.

PBS New Hour
Sports -- January 28, 2014 at 5:15 PM ET
Northwestern football players move to create college athlete union

By: News Desk
In what may end up being a landmark move, Ramogi Huma, president of the National College Players Association, filed a petition to unionize on behalf of football players at Northwestern University. The petition was filed with the National Labor Relations Board on Tuesday, according to an ESPN "Outside The Lines" report.

Northwestern's players are backed by the United Steelworkers union and the National College Players Association, which is an advocacy group founded by Huma, a former UCLA linebacker. The exact number of players who signed union cards for the petition was not released, but the NLRB requires at least 30 percent of group members to participate. At least 26 of the 85 scholarship players would have had to sign.

"The action we're taking isn't because of any mistreatment by Northwestern," said Northwestern quarterback Kain Colter on espn.com. "We love Northwestern."

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/201 ... union.html

[Rebel10]

Good for them. At least they are trying to get better medical benefits etc. I saw Colter interview yesterday and he made a reasonable point.

[Thumper]

I found it interesting that the Northwestern coach issued a tweet saying how proud of his guys he is. That might well be true, but if they're unionizing to improve their working conditions, doesn't that mean he's endorsing a movement that is aimed at his employers?

[leopold]

Soooo many questions.

- If this is for their safety, does it apply to other athletes, especially those in sports such as tennis, golf, cross country, and others where the danger isn't nearly as prevalent that they get hurt?
- What about walk-ons that don't receive any major compensation? Are they employees?
- This only applies to private schools (as they article says it would) and it passes how does that change the dynamic of a private school as opposed to a public school?

I'm sure other major questions are going to come up, but those are the ones I have just off the top of my head.

[PonyKai]

Existing case law out there (including an old TCU football injury) that Student Athletes aren't employees, they're independent contractors. Good luck with that. NCAA already made themselves look foolish saying it "undermines education." Just tell them they can't do it.

[CA Mustang]

I found it interesting that the Northwestern coach issued a tweet saying how proud of his guys he is. That might well be true, but if they're unionizing to improve their working conditions, doesn't that mean he's endorsing a movement that is aimed at his employers?

He has to either be silent or only make positive statements. Anything negative could be cited by the players as the school's negative approach and used to justify the approval of the union.

- If this is for their safety, does it apply to other athletes, especially those in sports such as tennis, golf, cross country, and others where the danger isn't nearly as prevalent that they get hurt?
- What about walk-ons that don't receive any major compensation? Are they employees?
- This only applies to private schools (as they article says it would) and it passes how does that change the dynamic of a private school as opposed to a public school?

Right now it is only football and men's basketball as those are the two sports that bring in the most revenue. As for safety that mostly applies to football but could expand to other sports.

True, this only applies to private schools (when will the movement reach SMU?). Players at public schools have to go through the labor relations board of their respective state.

[Moody Mustang]

Existing case law out there (including an old TCU football injury) that Student Athletes aren't employees, they're independent contractors. Good luck with that. NCAA already made themselves look foolish saying it "undermines education." Just tell them they can't do it.

That's the first line of the NCAA response I saw on SportsCenter, but I don't see how the NCAA can claim that. Athletes are paid (in the form of scholarship, room and board, etc.) to perform a service on which the NCAA makes millions of dollars. THey can dress it up however they like, but athletes definitely ARE employees.

[PonyKai]

Not unless you get a court to buy it they aren't.

[BigT3x]

I would LOVE to see a strike happen. The whole "student athlete" model is a sham, invented out of nowhere to stop Worker's Comp claims from injured students.

[leopold]

The IRS says that the NCAA isn't a for-profit. The overwhelming majority of schools within the NCAA, especially when you get past the FBS level, lose money on football and basketball - in fact, many have pointed out the these two sports are the ones that lose the MOST money at the overwhelming majority of schools. Walk-ons, the service academies, and other issues cloud the idea that the people who provide these services are doing so in order to make money or even to get a college education; how many here would play college football right now if they could, or any college sport, knowing full well they wouldn't be compensated?

What about boosters? How many corporations rely upon donations, not to mention openly ask for donations in order to compete or even survive? Ford Stadium sure as heck wasn't built on revenue, it was built on donations, period. Same holds true for other colleges' facilities as well. But you'll never see a buisiness such as GM built on private donations; maybe tax breaks or government subsidies, but that's not nearly the same thing.

People want to say that college athletics is a buisiness, but in reality the OVERWHELMING majority isn't. They could stop selling tickets, end all broadcasts of games, stop selling t-shirts, whatever and you'd still see Texas vs. Oklahoma, Harvard vs. Yale, Rhodes vs. Millsaps in some capacity. It's not a business.