HANOVER, N.H. (AP) – Dartmouth's men's basketball team unionized Tuesday in an unprecedented step toward forming the first union for college athletes and a new attack on the NCAA's deteriorating amateur business model. voted for the formation of
In an election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board in the school's human resources department, players voted 13-2 to join the Service Employees International Union Local 560, which already represents some of Dartmouth's workers. . All players on the roster participated.
“Today is a big day for our team,” players Cade Haskins and Romeo Mircil said in a statement. “We came together all season and won this election. It is self-evident that we, students, can be campus employees and union members. Dartmouth seems stuck in the past. Amateurs The time has come for the era of rhythm to end.”
The school will file an objection with the NLRB within five business days and could take the matter to federal court. That could delay collective bargaining agreement negotiations until long after the basketball team's current members graduate.
Dartmouth College said in a statement that it is pushing back on its decision and supporting the five unions negotiating on campus, including SEIU Local 560.
“However, in this isolated situation, the students on the men's basketball team are not employed by Dartmouth in any capacity,” the school said. “For Ivy League students who are varsity athletes, academics are of paramount importance, and athletic pursuits are part of the educational experience. Classifying these students as employees simply because they play basketball is It is both unprecedented and inaccurate. Therefore, we do not believe it is appropriate to unionize.”
Although the NCAA has long maintained that its players were “student-athletes” who attended school primarily to study, college sports have grown into a sports world. multi-billion dollar industry It gave coaches and schools hefty salaries while players remained unpaid amateurs.
Recent court decisions have chipped away at that framework, allowing players to profit from their name, image and likeness and earn a still limited living wage beyond their match fees. Ta. In a decision last month by the NLRB, Big Green players are school employeeswith the right to form a union, threatens to upset amateur models.
“We will continue to talk with other athletes at Dartmouth and across the Ivy League about unionizing and working together to advocate for athlete rights and welfare,” Haskins and Mircil said. .
The establishment of a college athletes' association would be unprecedented in American sports.previous Attempt to unionize Northwestern football team fails That's because the Wildcats play in the Big Ten, which includes public schools not under the NLRB's jurisdiction.
That's why one of the NCAA's biggest threats doesn't exist at big-budget football programs like the University of Alabama or the University of Michigan, which are almost indistinguishable from professional sports teams. Instead, it's an academically oriented Ivy League, where players don't receive athletic scholarships, teams play in sparsely filled gymnasiums, and games are streamed online rather than broadcast on network television. .
Mircil and Haskins said They want to form an Ivy League Players Association This would include athletes from other sports and other schools on campus participating in the conference. They said they understand that change may be too slow to benefit them and their current teammates.
The team includes four fourth-year students, five third-year students, three second-year students, and three first-year students.
“We have teammates here that we all love and support,” Mircil said after playing at Harvard last month, in his first game on the Big Green after the NLRB officials' ruling. “And anyone who comes into the Dartmouth family is part of our family. So we support them in any way we can.”
SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry said the players “will go down as one of the greatest basketball teams in history.”
“The Ivy League is where the entire scandalous model of near-free labor in college sports was born and where it's going to die,” she said.
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Jimmy Goren covers sports and law for The Associated Press.
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AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-Basketball
