Union leader: NCAA antitrust settlement won’t slow Dartmouth players’ unionization efforts

Supporters said Friday that efforts to unionize college athletes will continue even after the NCAA’s landmark agreement to allow players to receive salaries from a limited revenue-sharing pool.

“With this settlement, the NCAA continues to do everything in its power to avoid free market competition, which is what is most appropriate in this case,” said Chris Peck, president of the borough that won the right to represent Dartmouth men’s basketball players – a first for the school sports team. “The attempt to address the revenue sharing issue only reinforces our contention that the NCAA and Dartmouth continue to engage in a form of hidden employment.”

The NCAA and Power Five conferences agreed this week to an antitrust settlement that will pay $2.77 billion to a group of current and former players who were unable to profit from their skills because of long-standing amateurism rules in college sports. The settlement also allows, but does not require, schools to set aside about $21 million a year to share with players.

The agreement did not address whether players were employees – and therefore entitled to bargain over working conditions – or “student-athletes” participating in extracurricular activities, like choir members or Model United Nations. In the Dartmouth case, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that the schools exercised so much control over the men’s basketball players that they met the legal definition of employees.

The players then voted 13-2 to join Local 560 of the Service Employees International Union, which represents several other Dartmouth employees, and asked the school to begin collective bargaining negotiations; the school refused, setting off further court battles. The NCAA is also lobbying Congress to step in and declare that players are not employees.

The NCAA and conference leaders in a joint statement called on Congress to pass legislation that would protect them from future legal challenges.

“The settlement, while undesirable in many respects and promising only temporary stability, is necessary to avoid bankruptcy of college athletics,” said Notre Dame president the Rev. John Jenkins. “To save America’s great institution of college sports, Congress must pass legislation that preempts the current patchwork of state laws; establish that our athletes are not employees but degree-seeking students; and we will provide protection from further antitrust lawsuits that will enable universities to create and enforce policies that will protect our student-athletes and help ensure competitive equity among our teams.”

The Dartmouth union has said the best way for college sports leaders to avoid continued instability and antitrust liability is to collectively bargain with players.

“The solution is not a special waiver, or even more Congressional regulation that further undermines labor standards, but instead NCAA member universities must follow the same antitrust and labor laws as everyone else,” Peck said. “Only through collective bargaining should NCAA members obtain the antitrust relief they seek.”