NLRB memo: Football players are employees
College athletes who earn millions for their schools are employees, the National Labor Relations Board’s top lawyer said in guidance released Wednesday that would allow players at private universities to unionize and negotiate over their working conditions.
NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo also threatened action against schools, conferences and the NCAA if they continue to use the term “studentathlete,” saying that it was created to disguise the employment relationship with college athletes and discourage them from pursuing their rights.
“The freedom to engage in far-reaching and lucrative business enterprises makes players at academic institutions much more similar to professional athletes who are employed by a team to play a sport,” Abruzzo wrote.
In a statement, the NCAA disputed the characterization of its athletes as employees and said that its member schools and conferences “continue to make great strides in modernizing rules to benefit college athletes.”
“College athletes are students who compete against other students, not employees who compete against other employees,” said the nation’s largest college sports governing body, with oversight of some 450,000 athletes. “Like other students on a college or university campus who receive scholarships, those who participate in college sports are students. Both academics and athletics are part of a total educational experience that is unique to the United States and vital to the holistic development of all who participate.”
Abruzzo’s memo does not immediately alter the dynamic between the schools and their athletes, who can receive scholarships and limited cost of attendance funding in exchange for playing sports. Instead, it is legal advice for the NLRB should a case arise.
That could be triggered by an effort by a team to unionize, a claim of an unfair labor practice or even by a school using the term “student-athlete” to mislead players about their employment status, Abruzzo said in an interview with The Associated Press.
“It just perpetuates this notion that players at academic institutions are not workers that have statutory protection,” she said. “It is chilling workers’ rights to engage with one another to improve their terms and conditions of employment.”
Gabe Feldman, the director of the Tulane Sports Law Program, said the memo is “yet another threat” to the NCAA and its business model, which relies on unpaid athletes to reap billions in revenue that is distributed to its 1,200 member schools.
“All signs point to an increasingly at-risk and fragile system of college athletics,” he said.
Although football in the five largest conferences is college sports’ biggest money-maker, the memo would extend protections to all athletes who meet the legal definition of an employee: someone who performs services for an institution and is subject to its control.