Dartmouth vote to unionize seen as overdue

For those who have led unsuccessful labor movements involving NCAA athletes, the vote by Dartmouth men's basketball players to unionize felt momentous — even if they are still a long way from forming the first union in college sports.

In a 13-2 vote in a building on the campus in Hanover, New Hampshire, and under supervision of the National Labor Relations Board, players elected to join the Service Employees International Union Local 560 on Tuesday.

“This is definitely a milestone that has been reached. One that we believe should have been reached long ago,” said Ramogi Huma, a longtime advocate for college athletes who helped organize a movement to unionize Northwestern football players a decade ago.

As with Dartmouth basketball, a regional ruling by the NLRB cleared the way for a vote by the Northwestern football team to unionize. However, the votes were impounded and never revealed after the full board in 2015 dismissed the argument that the players were employees of the private Big Ten school.

Rules have changed since, allowing the result of the Dartmouth players' vote to be made public while the school appeals.

“In issuing her decision, the Regional Director made an unprecedented, unwarranted, and unsupported departure from every applicable Supreme Court, federal court and Board precedent and created a new definition of `employee' in a manner that not only exceeded her authority but promises to have significant labor and public policy implications,” the school wrote in its request for a ruling by the full NLRB board.

The case could also end up in federal court.

“I think this is years away from being settled, but it's going in the right direction,” said Huma, a former UCLA football player and executive director of the National College Players Association.