- axeil
- Feb 14, 2006
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This looks like it could be the beginning of the end for the NCAA's student athlete farce. Northwestern University's football team has filed paperwork to unionize.
Chicagoist posted:
An undisclosed number of Northwestern University’s football players have filed a petition to form a labor union with the National Labor Relations Board Tuesday. It’s the first time in the history of college sports that athletes are being asked to be represented by a union.
The petition was filed in Chicago by Ramogi Huma, president of the National College Players Association, with the technical backing of the United Steelworkers Union. Huma, who played college football at UCLA, said the filing “is about finally giving college athletes a seat at the table. Athletes deserve an equal voice when it comes to their physical, academic and financial protections.” Although the exact number of players who signed union cards isn’t known, at least 30 percent of the team needs to sign them in order for the filing to take place—26 of Northwestern’s 85 football players are on scholarship.
Huma told ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” NU quarterback Kain Colter reached out to the NCPA last spring for help in organizing and was spearheaded the labor effort, which culminated in a series of weekend meetings with other players. Colter, Huma and former UMass basketball player Luke Bonner also created a union called the College Athletes Players Association that would represent the players, if the petition is recognized by the NLRB.
Convincing arguments have been made in recent years to pay college athletes for their efforts on the field, court, ice and tracks. Tyson Hartnett, writing for the Huffington Post last October, equated being a college athlete to having a fulltime job with an annual salary of $25,000—the average yearly cost of a four-year scholarship.
quote:On a typical day, a player will wake up before classes, get a lift or conditioning session in, go to class until 3 or 4 p.m., go to practice, go to mandatory study hall, and then finish homework or study for a test.
The point of this is that a scholarship doesn't equal cash in a player's pocket. Even with any type of scholarship, college athletes are typically dead broke. But how much do the top NCAA executives make? About $1 million per year.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and its supporters have consistently taken the position that athletes are already being paid by attending college on full-ride scholarships. As the number of underclassmen leaving college football and basketball for professional careers has grown, the NCAA has started to re-think their stance. The subject of paying college athletes was a focal point of last week’s NCAA convention in San Diego.
United Steelworkers president Leo Gerard used to believe that before he spoke with Huma.
“(W)e were like an overwhelming part of the population in that we figured athletes were lucky because they're getting an education," Gerard said. "But then we looked into it and realized it's a myth. Many don't get a true education and their scholarships aren't guaranteed."
The NFL Players Association approved a resolution Tuesday "pledging its support to the National Collegiate Players Association (NCPA) and its pursuit of basic rights and protections for future NFLPA members.”
Colter told the Chicago Tribune the issue isn't about compensating players and anticipated a legal battle that could reach all the way to the Supreme Court.
Update 2:15 p.m. Both Northwestern and the NCAA responded to the union filing by Northwestern's football players today. Jim Phillips, NU's vice president for Athletics and Recreation, released a statement that should be the model for all official responses.
Northwestern University's VP for Athletics posted:"We love and are proud of our students. Northwestern teaches them to be leaders and independent thinkers who will make a positive impact on their communities, the nation and the world. Today's action demonstrates that they are doing so.
"Northwestern University always has been, and continues to be, committed to the health, safety and academic success of all of its students, including its student-athletes. The concerns regarding the long-term health impacts of playing intercollegiate sports, providing academic support and opportunities for student-athletes are being discussed currently at the national level, and we agree that they should have a prominent voice in those discussions.
"We are pleased to note that the Northwestern students involved in this effort emphasized that they are not unhappy with the University, the football program or their treatment here, but are raising the concerns because of the importance of these issues nationally.
"Northwestern believes that our student-athletes are not employees and collective bargaining is therefore not the appropriate method to address these concerns. However, we agree that the health and academic issues being raised by our student-athletes and others are important ones that deserve further consideration."
Compare that to the statement from Donald Remy, Chief Legal Officer for the NCAA.
The NCAA posted:This union-backed attempt to turn student-athletes into employees undermines the purpose of college: an education. Student-athletes are not employees, and their participation in college sports is voluntary. We stand for all student-athletes, not just those the unions want to professionalize. Many student athletes are provided scholarships and many other benefits for their participation. There is no employment relationship between the NCAA, its affiliated institutions or student-athletes. Student-athletes are not employees within any definition of the National Labor Relations Act or the Fair Labor Standards Act. We are confident the National Labor Relations Board will find in our favor, as there is no right to organize student-athletes.
source: http://chicagoist.com/2014/01/28/northwestern_university_football_pl.php
So what does everyone think about this? Is there any chance this works out? I don't know enough about labor law to know if the NLRB and others will approve the unionization.
edit: This article http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2014/1/28/5354718/college-football-players-union-pay-for-play lays out the demands the NU football players are demanding.
axeil fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Jan 29, 2014
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Jan 28, 2014 22:53
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May 14, 2024 15:18
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- axeil
- Feb 14, 2006
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I hope it succeeds, Workers Of The World, Unite! 
The NLRB is actually doing stuff now right? Obama finally got his appointments to the board through?
As far as I remember he recess appointed them a while back. And now that the Senate abolished the filibuster for executive branch appointments I believe the spots are filled permanently.
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Jan 28, 2014 23:03
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- axeil
- Feb 14, 2006
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This is a really great article. The only remotely controversial demand is #8. And I think when you realize that NCAA athletes can't seem to take any kind of job to earn money to do things their scholarship doesn't provide it's no longer controversial. I've heard about players being unable to afford food or other basic life necessities because they can't work a job due to their hours and yet their scholarship doesn't provide for those items.
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Jan 29, 2014 21:47
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- axeil
- Feb 14, 2006
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I work at a machine shop, so I spend a lot of my night thinking deeply about random rear end poo poo. Tonight was how an ideal NCAA to minor league switch would play out, and I figured I'd type it up. No other reason to read this effort post other than "wouldn't this own," unless one of you feels encouraged to print it off, slap it down in front of NCAA HQ and then self immolate.
Take the 32 NCAA teams with the biggest fan bases and income. Texas, Alabama, Oregon, Ohio State, etc and put them into the exact same division structure as the NFL. This would ensure teams would still have plenty of support even though they wouldn't be officially attached to their university or w/e. Texas Longhorns will always sell. Make sure that teams with long lasting rivalries aren't broken up. When an 18 year old prospect graduates from high school, he has two choices. He can choose his school, because it's not fair to tell someone who wants to get a finance degree from Michigan that they have to move to Auburn. The concession they have to give in order to get that choice is that they can't declare for the draft until after their 4th season, when they should have their degree. Stay in school, plebes. For those whose primary focus is football, they declare for a draft. Once they are drafted, they can apply for community college, the university that hosts their team, or say gently caress it and make bank for a few years before moving on with their life. Anyone 21-25 has to go through the minor league draft, so if you own at shittown college, you can have the opportunity to sign with the minors and get a year or two to really get your name out. Same salary cap, wage, and draft structures. Some teams will have a geographic advantage (not that the NCAA has done anything to enforce parity), but the draft for players who don't wish to go to school, or have a learning disability and can't but are 6'2" 200 and run a 4.4 40, should help out some of the worse off teams. These dudes are NFL draftable after their 3rd season. Anyone under 26 is eligible to play, so those inbetweeners have a couple more years to earn a shot in the NFL, and we can get some more enjoyment out of dudes like Pryor who were born to own second tier football.
NFL Drafted players go through training camp with their NFL teams. After the 3rd preseason game, each NFL team has to decide which players that are eligible they want to send back to the minors. Supplemental minors draft for players getting sent down who aren't already on a minor roster. This gives guys like Jamarcus, who a team may think having the rights to is worth a 1st round pick, but aren't anywhere near ready, a better chance at growing, by getting a preseason with the NFL squad and a regular season with his minor league team. Once the 4th preseason game is played, rosters are finalized, to kind of protect the minors from becoming a farm system and top players from teams that hundreds of thousands support from being called up and ruining a season because of an injury to the NFL team. Once they get sent back, they get a few weeks adjusting back to their minor league team before games start. They play 12 games in 13 weeks. That aligns with the season being finished at the same time as the NFL season, and then it rolls into the playoffs. You could have a top newly draftable players bowl the same week as the Pro Bowl, and then championship Saturday, super bowl Sunday, and the worst hangover ever Monday. I think it'd be pretty sweet. More talent, better chances to develop that talent, a BCS championship that features student athletes rather than cleverly disguised professional athletes,:and a second league that I would actually watch.
Yes, I would be interested in being commissioner, Goodell. Thank you for ceding your job to me.
So for this you'd have the 32 top college teams as the minor leagues and then a separate bunch of schools as the actual college game now? I think the idea has some merit but I think people would be rather pissed if the BCS championship or whatever was no longer eligible to be won by OSU/USC/Texas/etc. If you made another NFL Minor League Championship or whatever it'd probably go down easier.
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Feb 5, 2014 14:18
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- axeil
- Feb 14, 2006
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This is fantastic news. It's also nice to see the NLRB point out that "student-athletes" are a farce and a ruse to prevent treating the players fairly.
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Mar 26, 2014 20:43
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- axeil
- Feb 14, 2006
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Why does being state funded matter, though? My mom works for the University of Minnesota and as far as I know everyone that works there is union.
There's a bunch of legal differences between government unions and non-government unions. It's how Scott Walker was able to ban public sector unions in Wisconsin but couldn't do anything about the private sector ones. Someone with a labor law background probably knows better.
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Mar 26, 2014 21:58
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May 14, 2024 15:18
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- axeil
- Feb 14, 2006
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Might that run into the rule about political ads being equal-opportunity for both sides? Or whatever that rule is.
The rule is that if you sell political advertisements to specific candidates you have to sell it at the lowest cost for the timeslot.
This was famously used in 2012 as Obama bought all his direct while Romney relied on SuperPACs. The stations didn't have to give the SuperPAC the favorable rate and so he ended up spending three or four times as much money for the same amount of advertisement.
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Apr 3, 2014 14:52
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Jan 28, 2014 22:53
