The Dartmouth men’s basketball team on Tuesday voted 13-2 in favor of forming a union in a historic election that could usher in a new phase of the movement for college athletes to be treated like employees.
The election, ordered by the National Labor Relations Board, took place on the college’s campus in Hanover, N.H. The university filed a request for review by the NLRB on Tuesday, a school spokesperson said. That review and any potential appeal to federal court could keep official recognition and collective bargaining months away.
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“Today is a big day for our team,” said Dartmouth players Cade Haskins and Romeo Myrthil in a statement. “We stuck together all season and won this election. It is self-evident that we, as students, can also be both campus workers and union members. Dartmouth seems to be stuck in the past. It’s time for the age of amateurism to end. We call on the Dartmouth Board of Trustees and President Beilock to live the truth of her own words and cultivate ‘brave spaces’ in which ‘changing one’s mind based on new evidence is a good thing.’ Let’s work together to create a less exploitative business model for college sports. Over the next few months, we will continue to talk to other athletes at Dartmouth and throughout the Ivy League about forming unions and working together to advocate for athletes’ rights and well-being.”
The university responded to the vote with a statement after the results were announced: “For decades, Dartmouth has been proud to build productive relationships with the five unions that are currently part of our campus community. We always negotiate in good faith and have deep respect for our 1,500 union colleagues, including the members of SEIU Local 560. In this isolated circumstance, however, the students on the men’s basketball team are not in any way employed by Dartmouth. For Ivy League students who are varsity athletes, academics are of primary importance, and athletic pursuit is part of the educational experience. Classifying these students as employees simply because they play basketball is as unprecedented as it is inaccurate. We, therefore, do not believe unionization is appropriate.”
Last September, 15 Dartmouth men’s players filed a petition to the NLRB to unionize through the Service Employees International Union Local 560. The university challenged the move, echoing the long-held belief among administrators that college athletes should be considered students rather than salaried workers. In February, NLRB regional director Laura Sacks ruled that the players are employees and can move forward with an election to unionize. Sacks held that the Dartmouth players are employees because they perform work that benefits the school, the school holds significant control over their work and players receive compensation through equipment, lodging, tickets and other factors.
In 2014, Northwestern football players received a similar ruling at the regional level and cast ballots on whether to form a union, but the initial decision was overturned at the national level because the NLRB ruled it couldn’t assert jurisdiction, and the votes of the players were not counted. The NLRB only applies to the private sector, not state-run schools, and it determined in 2015 that because Northwestern was in the Big Ten, a conference at the time otherwise full of state schools, a national ruling would not promote stability in labor relations due to various state labor laws.
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Because Dartmouth is a member of the all-private Ivy League, the players would not appear to face the same obstacles at the national level. The Dartmouth election is also the first union effort since NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo published a memo in September 2021 updating the board’s stance that players at academic institutions are employees, inviting additional cases to be filed.
Dartmouth men’s basketball players casting their ballots to unionize and form a chapter of SEIU Local 560 pic.twitter.com/M5MMYO9dwZ
— Laine Higgins (@lainehiggins17) March 5, 2024
Dartmouth’s case is one of several in front of the NLRB. An unlawful labor practice charge in Los Angeles seeks to determine whether USC football and men’s and women’s basketball players are employees of USC, the Pac-12 and the NCAA jointly. The most recent set of hearings in that case came at the end of February. It could determine whether athletes can unionize regardless of the state they live in or the type of school they attend, if a conference and the NCAA are deemed joint employers.
“The NCAA is making changes to deliver more benefits to student-athletes, including guaranteed health care and guaranteed scholarships, but the NCAA and student-athlete leadership from all three divisions agree college athletes should not be forced into an employment model,” an NCAA spokesperson wrote in a statement. “The Association believes change in college sports is long overdue and is pursuing significant reforms. However, there are some issues the NCAA cannot address alone, and the Association looks forward to working with Congress to make needed changes in the best interest of all student-athletes.”
The momentum of this Dartmouth vote could also influence future organizing efforts and legislation around athlete employment as college sports heads further down this road.
“It’s quite possible that the example at Dartmouth may lead to other teams seeking to unionize both in the private sector and the public sector,” said William A. Herbert, the executive director of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions at Hunter College.
“I think this is just the start,” Haskins said after the vote, according to the Associated Press. “I think this is going to have a domino effect on other cases across the country, and that could lead to other changes.”
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(Photo: Adam Gray / Getty Images)