The Dartmouth Men’s Basketball Association says the NCAA settlement is not a solution

The NCAA antitrust settlement takes into account a world in which college athletes are paid directly by schools and where salary caps and revenue sharing apply.

It’s as if college sports were like the labor systems negotiated by the NFL and the NFLPA or the NBA and the NBPA.

One problem: None of these college policies were negotiated with the union.

Enter SEIU Local 560 President Chris Peck, whose union represents Dartmouth College men’s basketball players and about 500 workers across Dartmouth, including the plant, museum and athletics department, as well as custodians, security officers and craftsmen.

These basketball players are Dartmouth employees and unionized following a decision made earlier this year by National Labor Relations Board Regional Director Laura Sacks. Dartmouth has so far refused to negotiate and has asked the agency’s board to consider an appeal.

Peck argues that the NCAA settlement does not address labor market inequities in college sports and does not replace rules created through the union’s relationship with management.

“The attempt at a revenue-sharing solution only reinforces our contention that the NCAA and Dartmouth continue to engage in forms of hidden employment,” Peck said Friday, adding that he expected the NCAA to continue “to do everything in its power to power to avoid free market competition.”

The lack of collective bargaining means that the economic rules negotiated in the agreement between the NCAA and players’ attorneys are not immune from potential antitrust challenges. Non-statutory leave, which reflects a number of U.S. Supreme Court decisions, provides immunity from workplace policies that primarily affect wages, hours, and other working conditions when they are established through negotiation.

Rules created by court settlement or unilaterally imposed by management are not subject to immunity. This means that an athlete could argue that a salary cap violates antitrust law. The player would argue that the cap was a restriction on competition between competing businesses (colleges and conferences) and that some universities would pay more than the cap if they had discretion.

NCAA President Charlie Baker lobbied Congress to pass legislation that would grant the NCAA an exemption from antitrust law for economic rules arising from the settlement. He also wants a declaration that college athletes are not employees, meaning they cannot form unions because labor law requires union members to be employees.

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

Earlier Friday, Congresswoman Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), a former DI athlete at Georgetown University and a leading voice on college athlete legislation, said, “instead of asking Congress to turn back the clock, college leaders should take the opportunity to embrace a future in which athletes have a seat and a voice at the table when industry decisions are made based on their hard work.