Memo: College athletes 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 “student-athlete,” 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 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.
Abruzzo’s memo doesn’t immediately alter the dynamic between the schools and athletes, who can receive scholarships and limited cost of attendance funding in exchange for playing sports. It’s 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 continuing to refer to a player as a “student-athlete,”
Abruzzo said in an interview with The AP.
The NLRB has authority only over private schools; public university athletes would have to look to state legislatures or Congress for workplace protections. But the NCAA and the conferences could be viewed as co-employers, Abruzzo told the AP.
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