An effort to legally recognize college football and basketball players at the University of Southern California as employees of their school took a significant step forward Thursday.
The Los Angeles regional office of the National Labor Relations Board has been directed to investigate unfair labor practices against USC. The athletes at USC are employees of the three groups and will be argued that their rights have been violated. If they are successful, athletes who play men's basketball, women's basketball or football at any private college in the NCAA will be granted the rights of employees.
The National College Players Association is an advocacy group that has led several campaigns to increase benefits for college athletes.
The NCPA is trying to make sure college athletes are treated fairly in both the education and business aspects of college sports. Gaining employee status and the right to organize are important parts of ending NCAA sports' business practices that illegally exploit college athletes' labor.
A decade ago, Huma was involved in helping athletes at the university form a union. The question of whether or not college athletes should be considered employees was put to rest by a five person panel from the National Labor Relations Board.
Huma's group filed unfair labor practice charges instead of a petition to unionize. This type of claim can't be dismissed before it goes to an administrative law judge.
It could take months if not years for college athletes to be granted employee rights. Athletes will be argued on their behalf by the Los Angeles regional office of the National Labor Relations Board. The NCAA can appeal if the administrative law judge agrees that athletes are employees.
Allowing individual teams to unionize could create problems and a single team union could have negative impacts on labor stability was one of the reasons the board gave for dismissing the petition. The USC case is the first to consider whether the NCAA and the Pac-12 should be considered as joint employers, opening the possibility for players from more than one school to form a union.
Since the failed attempt to unionize, the political landscape has changed a lot. The NCAA has changed its rules so that players can make money from endorsements. The NCAA's claim that amateurism is an essential part of its business was questioned by the Supreme Court. College athletes could find a more fair path to sharing in the revenue they help to create if they formed a collective bargaining group, according to a concurring opinion by the Supreme Court's newest justice.
Some college athletes should be considered employees according to a memo issued by the National Labor Relations Board last September. Abruzzo's memo was seen as an invitation for college athletes to form unions.
Since then, two groups have filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board, one in Indianapolis against the NCAA and the other in Los Angeles. The Indianapolis claim is on hold until the Los Angeles case is over.
Abruzzo said that misclassifying college athletes as student-athletes instead of employees deprives them of their statutory right to organize and to join together to improve their working conditions if they wish to do so. We want to make sure that these players can exercise their rights.
Huma and the NCPA have organized a variety of campaigns to try to increase healthcare benefits for college athletes and get rid of limits of what they can be paid. Jordan Bohannon was one of the leaders of the protest that led to his joining the athletes board. Bohannon said Thursday's decision was an important step towards change.
I am an employee of the G League basketball team and I am doing the same thing I was doing when I was at the University of Iowa. Bohannon now has rights under labor law and a collective bargaining agreement. NCAA sports uses the words'student-athlete' and 'amateurism' to skirt labor laws and deny generations of college athletes fair treatment.
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