College Athletes Hit The Brakes On Union Effort Following Trump Victory

President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in November may have stalled the effort to organize college athletes into unions, at least through the formal election process.

The union seeking to represent men’s basketball players at Dartmouth College withdrew its petition last week at the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that oversees union elections. The Service Employees International Union Local 560 said its strategy would be “shifting” in the years ahead.

Then, on Monday, the NLRB’s general counsel also dismissed an unfair labor practice charge pending against the school, alleging Dartmouth had illegally refused to bargain with the union. That case is now closed.

The quick unraveling of the election case shows how much a presidential election can impact a labor campaign.

After taking office later this month, Trump will have the opportunity to flip the NLRB’s 5-member board from a Democratic to Republican majority, likely making it harder to organize in higher education and other fields.

The SEIU had prevailed in its election for the Dartmouth team last March, with 13 players voting in favor of unionizing and just two against. But the school challenged the premise that private-sector college athletes are employees under the law and therefore eligible to form unions and bargain ― a legal question the board has wrestled with, off and on, for a decade.

A regional director for the labor board sided with the SEIU early in the case, and the union would have had a good shot before a Democratic board in Washington, but the calculus changed with the outcome of the presidential election.

By withdrawing its petition, the union can avoid an adverse and precedent-setting decision against it, though a similar case may well find its way in front of a GOP-led board during Trump’s presidency.

Chris Peck, the president of SEIU Local 560, said in a statement that the union wanted to pull its petition in order to “preserve the precedent set by this exceptional group of young people.” He said that even though the election case is over, the union would continue to push for “just compensation” and “safe working conditions” for Dartmouth athletes.

He also argued that collective bargaining was the “only viable pathway” for addressing issues in college sports like eligibility rules and payments for NIL, or “name, image and likeness,” which players are now able to profit from.

“We will double down on our support for an Ivy League Players Association, expand our group licensing program, and continue to seek legal and administrative avenues to preserve and expand the rights of college athletes,” said Peck, whose union represents custodians, security officers and other campus employees at Dartmouth.

Dartmouth said in a statement that it has “productive relationships” with unions representing other employees, but it didn’t believe the basketball players should have collective bargaining rights.

“In this isolated instance… we did not believe unionization was appropriate,” the school said. “Dartmouth maintains that the Regional Director’s decision finding that the student-athletes were employees was incorrect and not supported by legal precedent.”

Trump’s election is not a death knell for efforts to organize college athletes. Democrats could flip the board after retaking the White House in four or eight years, and in the meantime, athletes could try to pressure their schools for voluntary recognition of their unions. That’s when an employer agrees to bargain without forcing workers through the NLRB process.

Voluntary recognition could be the central strategy for other higher-ed campaigns in the years to come under a Republican board. Conservatives have tended to rule in universities’ favor on questions like whether graduate-student workers should be able to unionize, which should make unions cautious when it comes to filing election petitions.

The Dartmouth players were not the first athletes at a private college to try to unionize. Ten years ago, football players at Northwestern University in Illinois launched a union effort with the help of the United Steelworkers. The then-Democratic board dodged the case by declining to assert its jurisdiction, ending the union campaign without opening the election ballots.

But the landscape of college sports has shifted significantly since then, with the public and regulators more aware of the revenue athletes generate for their schools.

Jennifer Abruzzo, the NLRB general counsel appointed by President Joe Biden, even warned the NCAA and schools not to run afoul of what she believed were college athletes’ collective-bargaining rights.

“If players at academic institutions feel like they want to choose a union to represent them in discussions with their employer over wages or working conditions … then they should be filing [union representation] petitions,” Abruzzo told HuffPost in 2021.

Trump is expected to replace Abruzzo early in his term, perhaps on his first day in office.