The National Labor Relations Board has overturned the initial decision to allow Northwestern football players to unionize.
The board unanimously agreed to overturn the decision based on the fact that it would create an instability on the college athletic landscape.
Here are more details from Bloomberg.com:
In its unanimous decision, the labor board skirted the issue of whether the players are employees and left open the door to other college athletes winning the right to unionize.
The board cited the unique nature of college sports in saying it would foster instability to permit Northwestern football players to form a union while players elsewhere in the National Collegiate Athletic Association are not.
“Our decision is primarily premised on a finding that because of the nature of sports leagues…it would not promote stability in labor relations to assert jurisdiction in this case,” the decision said.Northwestern is pleased by the decision and considers its athletes to be students first and foremost, Vice President for University Relations Alan K. Cubbage said in an e-mailed statement.
“Northwestern’s position remains that participation in athletics is part of the overall educational experience for our student-athletes, not a separate activity,” he said.
While I don’t think unionizing athletes is necessarily the right direction to go, I do think that college athletes should have much more of a say when it comes to players rights.
I think it is only a matter of time before players will get more of a say, and there is no way schools and the NCAA will be able to hide behind their fragile arguments much longer. This is only a minor setback in the grand scheme of things, when it comes to the battle between the players and the NCAA.
