NCAA Urges NLRB to Side With Dartmouth Against Basketball Players

Arguing that NLRB regional director Laura Sacks’ decision to recognize Dartmouth College men’s basketball players as employees within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act “will affect and have a far-reaching impact” on all “current and future” college athletes and “the NCAA membership as a whole,” the NCAA Thursday asked the NLRB for permission to file an amicus brief in support of Dartmouth.

The NLRB is currently weighing whether to hear Dartmouth’s appeal (technically called a request to review). As Sportico detailed, the NLRB hearing an appeal—let alone siding with Dartmouth—is anything but automatic. The board, which currently consists of four members (three of whom were nominated by Democratic presidents), only takes on an appeal when there are the “compelling reasons” and when either the regional director decided a substantial factual issue that is “clearly erroneous” and such a mistake “prejudicially affects” rights or a “substantial question of law or policy is raised” because the regional director’s decision departs from NLRB precedent.

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Dartmouth players, who have been employees of Dartmouth since February, unionized in March and are represented by the SEIU Local 560. Dartmouth has refused to bargain with the union, which has a right to negotiate players’ wages, hours, insurance, health care, disciplinary procedures, support services and other mandatory subjects of employment.

If the NLRB accepts the NCAA’s 32-page amicus brief, the agency’s board will see that, like Dartmouth, the NCAA portrays the “unprecedented” nature of college athletes as employees in a problematic light.

Although U.S. colleges have a long history of employing students—some of whom form unions that bargain with their college (for example, dining services student employees at Dartmouth have unionized and Dartmouth bargains with that union)—the NCAA stresses the NLRB, federal courts, the U.S. Supreme Court…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/ncaa-urges-nlrb-side-dartmouth-153729639.html

Author : Sportico

Publish date : 2024-06-21 15:37:29

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