NLRB Official Fouls Dartmouth, Holds Non-Scholarship Student-Athletes Are Employees
Highlights
A regional director of the National Labor Relations Board has ruled that non-scholarship student-athletes on the Dartmouth men’s basketball team are “employees” under federal law. The decision gives the basketball team the right to vote to unionize, which would force Dartmouth to collectively bargain with its student-athletes
Dartmouth is appealing the regional director’s decision to the full Board—and then likely to the courts—but the appeal does not delay the union election
With that appeal trajectory, this questionable, regional decision is unlikely to have an immediate impact beyond Hanover, NH. However, coupled with other legal attacks to declare student-athletes as employees—such as the pending NLRB case against USC, the Pac-12 and the NCAA—university athletics departments are exposed to several legal risks and burdens within and beyond labor law
It is not even March and the madness has already begun. On Feb. 5, National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Regional Director Laura Sacks issued an administrative decision (1) finding that Dartmouth University’s men’s basketball players are “employees” of the school and (2) directing an election in which the players can vote to join a labor union.
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