Northwestern University Football Team Unionizes

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Sports Argument Stadium > The Football Funhouse > Northwestern University Football Team Unionizes

bawfuls: Oct 28, 2009

This LA Times article compares college atheletes to graduate student teachers, who successfully unionized about a decade ago.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2014 10:13

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 23:31

bawfuls: Oct 28, 2009

Dubar posted:

The idea of scholarship being as good as payment is like if a retail job paid you in gift certificates. Yeah, it has a monetary value, but the "cost" to the employer is a fraction of its market value. Or if a company picked their ten best employees and sent them paychecks and then sent the rest of their employees a bill instead.

They are both employees because their labor produces revenue for the university.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2014 10:42

bawfuls: Oct 28, 2009

King Hong Kong posted:

I disagree with the parallel between graduate student instructors and college athletes made in the LA Times article, since the former derive from the university's need to employ teachers in order to fulfill its essential purpose, teaching. If a university had sufficient personnel or an alternative to in person instruction, it could and certainly would cease to employ these students in these existing positions of need. Since universities do not, graduate students are employed, paid, and consequently often have the ability to unionize.

College athletics are an ancillary function that happen to provide substantial revenues to a relatively small number of universities from a relatively small number of sports, which seems to be the basis for the claim that certain college athletes should unionize. This logic encounters problems when a sport generates less revenue because there is not a basis for employing students in that capacity. As much as I enjoy football, I do not believe that it is essential to a university and I would certainly prefer that these athletes receive employment from a minor league than from a university, at which sports - like any other student activity - should remain an amateur extra-curricular activity.

Whether these people are fulfilling an "essential function of the university" or not is irrelevant.

Both grad student TA's and football players are students who do work for the university (separate from their own academic work) which brings in revenue to their institution. That's the important link between the two.

And I feel like it bears repeating that currently these players at Northwestern aren't asking for direct pay-to-play, but rather better working conditions and the ability to make money independently.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2014 20:09

bawfuls: Oct 28, 2009

Idiot Wind posted:

What do most grad students do that "brings revenue" as teachers? They're being paid to provide the basic service that a university is involved in providing. That is explicitly the goal of having TAs teach. How is voluntary participation in extracurricular activity at all the same? If the goal of student-athletes is to make money, why the hell are they in college at all (except because, at the moment, that's the stepping stone to pro sports)? Obviously conditions should be improved, but they just shouldn't be where they are right now. Whether they're asking for pay or not, they're asking to be treated as employees, when they just aren't employees at all.

Grad student TA's are helping to teach classes. Classes are one of the services a University provides in exchange for tuition fees. TA's are contributing to the production of that service, thus they are contributing to the collection of that revenue stream.

King Hong Kong posted:

Football players are not doing "work" for the university any more than any other undergraduate student is in the context of their extra-curricular activity of choice. Their activity simply has the difference of bringing in more money to the university and that money is as often as not sustaining the program rather than creating a profit. As a result, the revenue argument for unionization is irrelevant except at a relatively small number of institutions.

Football players (at big programs) are doing physical labor which directly brings in significant revenue for the institution. How is that not work?

# ¿ Jan 29, 2014 20:40

bawfuls: Oct 28, 2009

Idiot Wind posted:

Are sporting events part of the service a university should supply? Obviously they are one at the moment, but should they be?

It doesn't matter if they should be or not for the purposes of this discussion. As long as the university is an entity that makes money off of sports like football, then the players who's labor is creating that value deserve to be compensated for doing so.

But my previous post in response to you was intended to highlight how the work of TA's does in fact contribute to university revenue.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2014 21:30

bawfuls: Oct 28, 2009

King Hong Kong posted:

They are not employees, they are students participating in an activity for which they may or may not receive scholarships just like other students receive scholarships for other reasons. If they were employees in the same way many graduate students are (a status that is separate from their role as students), then the question of unionization would probably have been resolved long ago.

Mind you, in an ideal situation, I do not think that these students should be employed, but I also think that their participation in college athletics does not generally serve them well and quite often detracts from their lives. Create a minor league for those players and let college football be for true amateurs like almost every other college sport and activity is. That will not happen in foreseeable future, but at least it is a relatively good solution compared to the stop-gap measure of employment.

I didn't say they were employees, I said what they are doing is clearly work, which you had disputed for some reason.

But the classification of "student athletes" as not employees is just semantics, as has been pointed out already. They are already given compensation (though insufficient and highly restrictive as it is) in exchange for their labor on the football field.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2014 21:33

bawfuls: Oct 28, 2009

King Hong Kong posted:

As is alluded to above by Idiot Wind, while I certainly agree that football is labor in certain contexts - and should be treated as such in those contexts - it is not and should not be labor within the context of a university. To that end, I do not think that universities should endeavor to maximize profits from their athletic programs by means of exploiting their students, an aim which is contrary in spirit to universities' essential educational and research missions.

Well, too late. It already is, and College Football is a massive and quite profitable industry. We can either accept this reality and allow for unionization to bring some balance and justice to the situation, or we can abolish athletic scholarships and profit-seeking in NCAA football completely.

Good luck with that second approach.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2014 22:37

bawfuls: Oct 28, 2009

Idiot Wind posted:

Or maybe the NFL and NBA could, I don't know, have their own minor league systems that don't interfere with the operation of educational institutions?

I would argue that allowing these players to unionize could in fact hasten the arrival of such a framework.

Because right now the NFL and NCAA have zero incentive to scrap the current system for a true minor league set up. The NFL gets to reap the benefits of a huge player scouting and development system without paying a dime, while the NCAA gets to profit off their end of the operation.

Give the players some power, allow them to collectively bargain, and the end result may eventually be a more appropriate minor league system. This avenue seems much more practical than trying to convince the NFL and NBA to set up minor league systems out of the goodness of their hearts.

bawfuls fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Jan 29, 2014

# ¿ Jan 29, 2014 23:23

bawfuls: Oct 28, 2009

Thoguh posted:

D&D is leaking again.

How dare we be forced to face the social repercussions of our sports-entertainment industries!

# ¿ Jan 30, 2014 02:19

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 23:31

bawfuls: Oct 28, 2009

A lot of MLB players are drafted out of college. It's also common for a player to get drafted out of high school, decide his draft slot wasn't high enough, go play in college for a few years, and eventually get re-drafted at a higher spot.

In MLB at least, players need so much development time that high school guys tend to be riskier picks than college guys. I don't know if the same would apply to football however.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2014 00:26

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Sports Argument Stadium > The Football Funhouse > Northwestern University Football Team Unionizes