- Northwestern University Football Players Form Their Own Team
- 5 Questions about Northwestern Football Players' Attempt to Form a Union in College Sports
by Leo W. Gerard
International President, United Steelworkers
Huffington Post
February 3, 2014
For decades, college football players absorbed some pretty cheap shots from their schools and the NCAA.
These athletes knew it wasn't right that universities rescinded academic scholarships and refused to cover medical treatment for players permanently injured in college games.
The schools and the NCAA, flush with billions in TV contract cash, and coaches and university presidents rolling in million-dollar pay packages, all banked on players conducting themselves as stereotype dumb jocks.
But last week, Northwestern University football players showed they'd learned more than playbooks in years of gridiron training. They'd also learned teamwork. They understood that individuals don't win football games. And they knew they weren't going to win this fierce contest with their schools and the NCAA without teamwork. So they formed a new team, their own team, the College Athletes Players Association (CAPA). They petitioned the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to recognize CAPA as a labor union, which could negotiate with the schools and exert the collective power of a team rather than the weak hand of an individual.
In a hearing before the NLRB later this month, CAPA will explain why the Northwestern scholarship athletes are employees of the university. They are recruited, as corporations recruit executives. They are paid, not with cash but with academic scholarships.
Like employers, universities stop the scholarships if the athletes don't work. It's pittance pay for dangerous play. Athletes are hurt routinely, some suffering injuries that remove them from the game permanently and that plague them for a lifetime. Universities often revoke the scholarships of injured athletes who can no longer perform on the field, just as corporations stop paying workers who don't show up and perform their jobs.
These athletes work full-time for the universities. The NCAA's own statistics, from its Growth, Opportunities, Aspirations and Learning of Students in College Study showed that the average FBS football player spent 43.3 hours a week in training or games in season and Division I men's basketball players spent 39.2 hours.
In addition, the universities control where these students live, what they eat, their summer activities and even what they can say to reporters. The NCAA can punish them by limiting their playing time if they change schools.
And it's all about their work on the field and not at all about academics. The NCAA and the universities don't include college completion as part of their commitment to these athletes. The statistics show that's not important to the schools. They don't graduate 43 percent of their football players and 53 percent of men's basketball players. One former starting quarterback and team captain is suing because he says a new coach at his North Carolina school cut off his scholarship after he missed a few practices to attend an academic internship that an earlier coach had approved.
University scholarship athletes don't have a say in any of this. The NCAA does not give players a seat at the table where university officials make the rules. Individual athletes have achieved little success in confronting the schools and the NCAA on vital issues like concussions and medical care.
Ramogi Huma, a former UCLA linebacker, founded the National College Players Association (NCPA) in 2001 to secure better treatment for university players. During the Championship Series title game, the NCPA flew a banner for hours over the Rose Bowl that read, "All Players United for Concussion Reform. Wake up NCAA!" It has not yet smelled the roses.
NCPA has pressed the NCAA for a consistent policy on concussions sustained on the field that would ensure the health and safety of players. Some former athletes are suing the NCAA over this now.
Player support for NCPA's efforts is broader than Northwestern. During last year's football season, players around the country joined Northwestern quarterback Kain Colter in wearing wristbands with the initials APU, which stands for All Players United.
If the Northwestern players win their case before the NLRB, Huma hopes CAPA will be able to organize football and basketball players at other private universities. That would give the athletes a stronger voice in dealing with the NCAA and the universities.
Even though the NCAA and the universities get billions for the athletes' work, Huma and Colter, who spoke for the Northwestern football players, are not asking for money. Instead, they want medical coverage for sports-related injuries sustained by current and former players. They want new efforts to minimize traumatic brain injuries. They want universities to improve graduation rates by establishing an educational trust fund to help former players complete degrees.
Huma and Colter held a press conference in Chicago last week to announce CAPA. My union, the United Steelworkers, was there. When Huma formed NCPA, he turned to the Steelworkers for help because he knew the Steelworkers aided the Students Against Sweatshops chapter on his campus. The Steelworkers are covering CAPA's legal expenses but would not represent the players and would not receive dues money from them.
The Steelworkers feel solidarity with these athletes. Like them, Steelworkers know the value of teamwork. In Chicago 77 years ago, police gunned down 10 and injured 30 steelworkers and supporters as they demonstrated for a first labor contract with Republic Steel. Steelworkers stuck together after what came to be known as the Memorial Day Massacre and eventually won a contract with Republic and a fairer share of the fruits of their labor.
Only a team can achieve that.
5 Questions about Northwestern Football Players' Attempt to Form a Union in College Sports
By Jon Solomon
AL.Com
February 1, 2014
This week, Northwestern football players filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board to become a union. Essentially, they want college athletes to be recognized as employees in a multi-billion-dollar industry.
The players say they want to collectively bargain numerous issues with universities, such as medical expenses, minimizing the risks of brain injuries, and allowing players to be paid for commercial sponsorships. (The hot-button topic of sharing television revenue, which players in the Ed O'Bannon lawsuit are seeking, was not listed as a goal by the players trying to form a union. At least not yet).
But forming a union figures to be a long, difficult struggle over several years that many experts believe won't succeed. Some questions and answers about a college players union:
1. What's the biggest hurdle for players?
Legal precedent. The courts have been fairly consistent over the past 60 years of refuting the ability of college athletes to unionize by defining them as students and not employees.
"Despite public perception and sentiment that college athletes have an ability to legally unionize and have a say in the operating system of college athletics, there is 60 years of precedent," said Warren Zola, a sports law professor at Boston College.
"Because of the growing realization that intercollegiate athletics is a multi-billion dollar industry and the shifting public support of college athletes' rights, it's possible public opinion may sway the NLRB or court. But these efforts face a long, uphill battle. Even if the NLRB recognizes college athletes as employees, you're talking at least two or three years and with many appeals."
The NLRB is "in a state of flux" and not designed to produce fast processes, said Gabe Feldman, director of the sports law program at Tulane. Slow deliberations by the NLRB impacted lockouts in the NFL and NBA.
"This might be a situation, where like a lot of litigation, it ends in a business decision and that's for schools to provide some of the protections the players are seeking but without entering into a union or collective bargaining agreement," Feldman said. "Which at the end of the day might be what the players really want."
2. What argument will players use to make their case?
Graduate students. Some private universities have allowed graduate students to form unions. New York University grad students recently formed a union. However, the NLRB ruled in 2004 that graduate students at private universities do not have a right to unionize.
In that 2004 ruling involving Brown University, the NLRB concluded that the relationship between graduate teaching assistants and their university is mostly educational, not economic. The NCAA and universities could attempt to make a similar argument about their relationship with athletes -- thus the term "student-athlete," which was created by former NCAA executive director Walter Byers in 1964 as a legal defense for the NCAA against workers' compensation.
The NLRB's ruling in 2004 only applied to private universities. State labor laws govern public universities, some of which are unionized. Northwestern is a private university.
"Only certain jurisdictions have afforded graduate students the right to unionize," Zola said. "This is not an area where the NCAA is wrong that college athletes have been defined as students and not employees."
In 2011, a regional NLRB official determined that some of NYU's graduate assistants have "a dual relationship" with the university that is "both academic and economic," thus meaning they could be considered employees. The college players, backed by the United Steelworkers union, could point to that decision.
3. Should the NCAA and schools actually prefer a union?
The NCAA has said college athletes are not employees and that their participation in sports is voluntary. Northwestern Athletics Director Jim Phillips said he supports some of the players' goals but that collective bargaining is not the method to address them.
Zola believes the NCAA should strongly consider recognizing college athletes as a union. Why? Because it would provide protections against antitrust claims, such as those raised in the O'Bannon lawsuit. NFL and NBA owners have often enjoyed the upper hand in collective bargaining negotiations with players. In those negotiations, the players -- not the owners -- have attempted to decertify their union.
"For all of the challenges college athletes have raised in court, many of those issues wouldn't matter if they had collectively bargained," Zola said. "I'm not quite sure why the NCAA isn't embracing it."
The NCAA has adamantly rejected what it calls the professionalization of college sports by making athletes employees. But what if the courts or a settlement provide an agreement for athletes to be paid?
"If schools start paying athletes beyond cost of attendance, does that destroy their amateurism defense?" Feldman said. "You can't be a little pregnant. You're either amateur or not. But in the past, the courts have let the NCAA define amateurism however they want to."
Another question for the NCAA: Would a players union open the door for the NCAA to lose its tax-exempt status?
"If they're employees, it does open up a lot," Feldman said. "It may be that the NCAA is such a unique body that has to answer to so many masters that some sort of action by Congress is necessary here to carve out exemptions. But that's a long way down the road. Expecting Congress to come and fix this is probably unrealistic."
4. Who would the players negotiate with as a union?
This could be a key question. Many court grievances by players against the NCAA through the years describe college sports' governing body as a cartel that limits the players' market in terms of compensation and scholarship limitations.
But even if courts determine that the NCAA has violated antitrust laws, the NCAA isn't necessarily the employer of the players. Universities, who are members of the NCAA could be considered the employer. Universities around the country are governed by different state labor laws.
It's no coincidence that Northwestern, a private school, was selected for the trial run. Only private universities are covered by the National Labor Relations Act. If the Northwestern players won the right to unionize, the union may not include players at public schools given individual state laws. Imagine a day where college players are governed by different sets of laws but all under the NCAA umbrella. Still, that's a long way off.
5. In the big picture, how significant is this union attempt?
As a symbol, it's pretty significant. With increasing frequency, college athletes want a seat at the table and protections. Athletes in high-profile sports, led by Ramogi Huma of the National College Players Association, helped start the movement.
But it's now trickling down to athletes in lower-profile sports. Last month, members of the NCAA Student-Athlete Advisory Committee expressed frustration that their voices aren't heard.
The attempt to form a union comes as the O'Bannon case nears its June trial date. The case stems from the use of athletes' names, images and likenesses without allowing them to financially benefit. First, the O'Bannon judge is hearing summary judgment arguments.
The formal attempt of a players union "is certainly a significant moment for an issue that's been picking up steam," Feldman said. "There's been lots of times we thought this might be the tipping point of significantly changing college athletics. Maybe we're here with O'Bannon and the NCAA (governance) restructuring and the college football playoff and the unionization effort. But we've been saying maybe for a long time. I'm not ready to say yet this is more than a symbolic event."
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