Northwestern Football Players attempting to become a union
 

Kain Colter starts union movement
Tom Farrey [ARCHIVE]

ESPN.com | January 28, 2014
For the first time in the history of college sports, athletes are asking to be represented by a labor union, taking formal steps on Tuesday to begin the process of being recognized as employees, ESPN's "Outside The Lines" has learned.

Ramogi Huma, president of the National College Players Association, filed a petition in Chicago on behalf of football players at Northwestern University, submitting the form at the regional office of the National Labor Relations Board.

Backed by the United Steelworkers union, Huma also filed union cards signed by an undisclosed number of Northwestern players with the NLRB -- the federal statutory body that recognizes groups that seek collective bargaining rights.


Jerry Lai/USA TODAY Sports
Northwestern quarterback Kain Colter reached out to the National College Players Association last spring to ask for help in giving athletes representation in their effort to improve the conditions under which they play NCAA sports.
"This is about finally giving college athletes a seat at the table," said Huma, a former UCLA linebacker, who created the NCPA as an advocacy group in 2001. "Athletes deserve an equal voice when it comes to their physical, academic and financial protections."

Huma told "Outside The Lines" that the move to unionize players at Northwestern started with quarterback Kain Colter, who reached out to him last spring and asked for help in giving athletes representation in their effort to improve the conditions under which they play NCAA sports. Colter became a leading voice in regular NCPA-organized conference calls among players from around the country.

In a Sept. 21 game against Maine, Colter wore a black wristband with the hashtag "#APU" -- All Players United -- prominently scrawled in white marker as part of a quiet protest gesture. He was joined that day by about 10 teammates as well as players from Georgia and Georgia Tech. In all, players on seven teams in the five largest conferences displayed the #APU symbol, according to the NCPA.

Huma said he met with Northwestern players over the weekend on campus in Evanston, Ill., and took the next step in creating a collective voice for players. He said Colter introduced him to groups of players that Colter had talked with over the past couple of months about their interest in taking the unprecedented step of asking for union representation.

To have the NLRB consider a petition to be unionized, at least 30 percent of the members of a group serving an employer must sign union cards.

Huma declined to say how many Northwestern players signed cards other than the number was "overwhelming majority." To get to 30 percent, at least 26 of the 85 scholarship players had to sign.

The formal entity that would represent the players, if certified by the NLRB, is called the College Athletes Players Association (CAPA). It was created by Huma, Colter and Luke Bonner, a former U-Mass basketball player and brother of NBA player Matt Bonner, with technical support from the United Steelworkers, who will not receive union dues from players, said Huma, who is registered as president of the organization.

"When Ramogi first reached out to us years ago, we were like an overwhelming part of the population in that we figured athletes were lucky because they're getting an education," United Steelworkers president Leo Gerard said Tuesday. "But then we looked into it and realized it's a myth. Many don't get a true education and their scholarships aren't guaranteed."

The group has called a news conference at 11:30 a.m. CST on Tuesday at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Chicago where Kolter, Huma, Gerard and the union's national political director Tim Waters, the NCPA's liaison within the union, will speak.

"The NCAA is a train wreck waiting to happen," Waters said. "What brought them to this moment is they couldn't control their greed. They put all this money in the system."

Spokesmen for Northwestern, the Big Ten Conference and NCAA were not immediately available for comment.

Huma said the goals of the CAPA is the same as the NCPA. The group has pressed for better concussion and other medical protections, and for scholarships to cover the full cost of attendance.

Having already successfully advocated for the creation of multi-year scholarships, it now would like those scholarships to be guaranteed even if a player is no longer able to continue for injury or medical reasons. The group has also called for a trust fund that players could tap into after their NCAA eligibility expires to finish schooling or be rewarded for finishing schooling.

The NCPA has lobbied state legislatures, Congress and the NCAA on these issues over the years, and earlier this month hired airplanes to fly protest banners at the BCS Championship Game at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., and at the NCAA Convention in San Diego.

"It's become clear that relying on NCAA policymakers won't work, that they are never going to protect college athletes, and you can see that with their actions over the past decade," Huma said. "Look at their position on concussions. They say they have no legal obligation to protect players."

The initial goals of the CAPA do not include a call for schools to pay salaries, Huma said. However, he declined to rule out the possibility that CAPA would seek that type of compensation in the future and said he knows the public will begin speculating about scenarios in which players would receive a cut of the $5.15 billion in revenues currently generated by athletic departments in the five power conferences.

Those universities will be flush with new cash in the coming years due to the advent of the College Football Playoff which starts next year, and the signing of lucrative, long-term media contracts that will more than double in value by 2020, according to the SportsBusiness Journal.

At the outset, only Division I FBS football players and men's basketball players -- the athletes at the center of the commercial enterprise -- will be eligible to join CAPA because they are best situated to make a case to be treated as employees, Huma said. Over time, the CAPA may expand its scope to include other sports.

He said only scholarship players are eligible for inclusion, as they have are already being compensated by schools in the form of a "grant-in-aid" that is capped at the level of tuition, room and board, books and fees.

By filing the union cards with the NLRB, CAPA triggers a process that could take years to resolve. The first group that will consider the request will be the regional board of the NLRB, whose decision can be appealed to the national board.

Northwestern is expected to oppose the action on the grounds athletes are not employees, and the NCAA, the trade association representing the athletic interests of universities, will likely enter the fray as well.

Gerard said he would "not be surprised" if it ends up in the federal court system.

Athletes playing for university-based teams are not currently considered employees by any legal body. They haven't been since 1953, when the Colorado Supreme Court upheld a determination by the state Industrial Commission that a football player at the University of Denver was an "employee" within the context of the Colorado workers' compensation statute.

As a result, the university was responsible to provide workers' comp for his football injuries. The NCAA responded by coining the term "student-athlete" and mandating its use by universities. Use of that term, and other efforts to draw a enforce the idea that athletes cannot also be employees, ramped up as the NCAA a few years later introduced athletic scholarships, a form of compensation for services provided.

The distinction has held, though since then the courts have come to recognize other students who provide services to universities as employees. Graduate students who teach, for instance, are recognized as employees of universities under laws in many states. Academics such as Richard and Amy McCormick of Michigan State have argued that athletes are employees under the common law definition of the National Labor Relations Act.

The NLRA governs only private enterprises and does apply to public universities. As a private university, Northwestern University falls under its jurisdiction. Gerard said that based on labor law, any decision in favor of the players against Northwestern would apply to all private universities across the country in the FBS division. It would not apply to public universities, which are governed by state laws.

Sounds like a good step for college athletes.

Sounds like the end of college athletics ... and I hope this absurd b.s. is bitchslapped all the way back to the pits of hell from whence it came.

It'll definitely create a dialogue which is important. When there's essentially a black market where athletes are getting paid six figure sums by boosters obviously there's something wrong with the system.

The system is definitely flawed, and everyone knows it--but the billions generated support thousands of student-athletes and school programs besides football and basketball players.

I think something should be done to fix the issues with the system, but I am with JIMG that this sort of thing will be the death of college athletics.

College sports is a billion dollar industry. The most important component of that industry, the players, of course should be attempting various ways to improve their lot within that business. Though I don't think this particular attempt will amount to anything. Nor do I understand how players trying to stick up for themselves could cause the death of a billion dollar industry.

Yeah, +2 here to the Jon/Chief thought. Despite the flawed system that sucks, it enables thousands of athletic programs that otherwise couldn't be afforded continue to exist. Track and field, baseball, softball, volleyball, swimming, water polo, etc - none of these would continue to exist without the money that the big sports produce.

Agreed. Along with talk that the 5 major conferences will split off from the NCAA, I believe change is coming.

I'm not remotely sure that's the case at all, tbh.

Pull the top 1,000 athletes out of D1 college football tomorrow, move 1,000 up for each level ... I believe you've got roughly the same popularity.

They're the most easily replaceable part of the entire product.

Of course they could. High schools and small colleges have athletic programs with team sports.

I'm all for some of the stuff they advocate, such as multi year scholarships, but overall I think its nonsense.

No one is forcing them to take a scholarship and play sports at school. They are welcome to take out loans and pay for school like the rest of us if they don't like it. Also, if they are "employees" I guess they should be taxed on their compensation like the rest of us are. The room, board, education, books, etc...

I agree there are issues with the NCAA and "amatures" but this isn't the fix.

But why are we even talking about the impact of the end of college athletics. I don't get that hypothetical in the first place. Can someone explain how that would play out? Players can try to get more, whether that be money, insurance coverage, freedom to transfer and play immediately, whatever. The schools and TV networks can try to give less, to maximize their own benefits. Like every other negotiation. If the players request say, $50 million per player, and the schools agreed to it, than ya, it might make more financial sense to close down sports at that point, but obviously schools and networks aren't going to agree to terms that take away their entire cash cow. It's not like players have a ton of leverage.

How does it follow from that that players should never be allowed to even ask for different conditions of their pseudo-employment? Should you also not be allowed to ever ask for a raise or time off, or for a new stapler? Nobody's forcing you to take the job in the first place.

No one is forcing schools to have football teams either.

And nobody's forcing them to pay $5 million for someone to coach their amateur student-athletes.

I think it's fair that the players want a piece of the pie. Coaches get millions of dollars to stand on a sideline while the players risk actual physical injury that could impact them for the rest of their lives get room and board and a few seem to get an actual education.

Not to mention the millions from endorsements and shoe contracts.

I guess a $30-40,000 a year scholarship to go to a university to study for a career isn't enough of a payday?

What's enough for a head football coach? What's enough for a TV contract? What's enough for a video game licensing deal? Who decides these things? Isn't it usually negotiations between the parties?

I hope no one paid $30-40,000 a year for the fake classes at UNC.

No, it's market forces for all of those things.

The value of a scholarship is much more complicated. Apples and oranges.

Well, that's the debate, whether that status quo should remain. If you can shut down a market by offering a "complicated" scholarship, maybe that's all head coaches should get, and maybe TV contracts should just be paid for in scholarships. Hell, maybe an entire industry could collectively replace salary and labor laws with scholarships, and then you have something almost equivalent to the NCAA.

Edit: And this isn't solely about player compensation, a debate that has happened here a million times. Players have a limited voice and nobody to advocate for them in non-monetary issues as well. Regular students have more leverage, they can just attend a different school with different policies, and even participate in student government organizations that may have some ability to influence procedures and policy. An athlete is governed by the NCAA wherever they go.

True. I find it pretty abhorrent that most states in the country have a collegiate sports coach as the highest paid state employee.

The paying players issue is obviously more complicated, hence why they aren't even talking about it yet, but to me muti-year scholarships guaranteed in case of injury seems like a no brainer and its sad those aren't the norm already.

But market forces could apply to players too (and we know they do, illegally). How much would Deshawn Hand, Jabril Peppers, Fournette, etc go for this year? Peppers' scholarship to Michigan is probably more valuable than Hand's scholarship to Alabama for their post-football lives. We don't see many players grab that much more valuable Duke scholarship over one to LSU.

Why? If that $3MM coach has a program successful enough where the AD is pulling in $50MM in revenues, who cares?

Is it all because of the fantasy that college football isn't an actual business?

Would all this go away if we didn't treat these programs as non-profits?

I love anything that comes from the pits of hell, so I'm all for this.

This is a fake stat, as though they are technically state employees, they are paid most often through privately funded foundations.

Going to need some of the big dogs (Alabama, Texas, Florida State, Notre Dame) to join forces with them to accomplish anything I am afraid.

It wouldn't be the end of college sports if players started getting paid. What will happen though is even more lawsuits, this time from nonrevenue and women's sports, demanding the same treatment.

Also, the gulf between the wealthy programs and everyone else in terms of on-field product will continue to grow. Look for even more tuition hikes to boot, because universities aren't going to want to cut even deeper into academics than they already have, so they'll pass the buck on to the students.

Except in revenue sports' players case, the value is actually diminished due to the amount of control their programs have their academics, right down to their majors and class selection (Read: Keep them eligible and as focused as the sport as much as possible).

I would love to see this, Title IX and forcing the same or equal $ value that the football players will get. To me that should force a lot of backoff, because a lot of teams are pulling in a $ payday but it is the football $ that is covering a lot of the non rev sports.

It is the Title IX and non-revenue sports equality issues which will kill college athletics.

How? If it violates Title IX to compensate certain athletes more than others (which I doubt), then maybe schools will just not pay athletes, or maneuver around it, instead of shutting down an entire billion dollar industry. The players aren't going to be able to negotiate for something illegal.

There's so much money in this. It's not just going to all implode for all the involved entities if athletes try to have more of a say on monetary and non-monetary issues. That just makes no sense.

Dola, but if Title IX requires schools receiving federal funding to treat all athletes the same, those suits should already be happening, because schools do directly and indirectly pay top athletes and provide them enhanced benefits. If those indirect payments from boosters don't count under a Title IX analysis, then just pull that whole process out of the darkness and let athletes receive those payments out in the open (and pay taxes on them). Problem solved, and now the schools don't have to dismantle a $5 billion industry (not that they would ever do that anyway), or even pay players themselves.

Not if you're skills are worth more.

Except the part where D2 and D3 schools have been able to field teams in sports like this without huge money.

First of all, the whole point of this thread is that there is an attempt to set up an organization which would allow players to negotiate for pay. So by definition this means pay in some form. If "schools just aren't going to pay players", that is a hypothetical we're not discussing here and is not relevant. The prevailing assumption to "this will kill college athletics" is that players will be paid. If you posit to remove one, I posit to remove my assertion because one does not exist without the other.

Second, as to there being so much money... there are a LOT of student athletes in this country. The money won't go as far as you think.

Keep in mind, even with the current system not paying players, the vast majority of athletic departments need to be subsidized with school funds, and of the hundreds/thousands of universities currently under the NCAA umbrella, something like under 100 actually make a profit currently.

By A) offering less scholarships, as per NCAA rules defining those levels, and B) massive subsidies from the general school funding.

So your argument assumes that universities will agree to pay players even if it's illegal, and even if they can't possibly afford to do it? Why would the universities agree to do this, under your hypothetical?

Setting up an organization to have some kind of voice in the process doesn't guarantee that schools have to pay every player thousands of dollars overnight. They'll only agree to something that makes some sense for them, they're not going to agree to something that ends a billion dollar industry. Edit: That's one of the odder pro-management arguments I've heard. "We can't let the employees have a voice in the process because then we'll have no choice but to give them everything they want and we'll bankrupt ourselves and this entire industry."

They also don't have giant TV and licensing deals. Point is that this doesn't end sports at all, it's just a scare tactic. There would still be all those other sports just like there are in lower levels where money is much more scarce. Schools would simply have to budget differently.

Let players seek endorsement deals. End of the issue.

And booster money, and licensing deals, and the ability to have jobs. This is just the kind of thing an organization like this could advocate for. And it might not even cause the end of college sports.

There are a few funny things about this, but perhaps the best is the reason why players are "forced" to go to college is because of other unions' collective bargaining agreements.

No, my argument is that this unionization attempt will result in an attempt to pay players, and if that happens and the courts rule that that must happen, big boy college athletics as we know it will end. Universities will be unable to field anything but the barest bones of teams as we currently know them.

In my opinion, that is figuratively the death of college sports, if not literally.

How would they have time for jobs on top of school and sports? It would seem like being a full-time athlete and student would be enough.

And eventually, it becomes baseball, with the Yankees of the NCAA winning it all every year, and smaller schools have no chance to compete.

How is that different from the current state of affairs, though?

In theory Texas would be better. :D

Is there more parity in college football than there is in baseball? (Alabama has won more championships than the Yankees in recent years).

But anyway, I don't think a desire for parity is a good reason to deprive someone the opportunity to earn money from an outside source. And I don't think that's even the NCAA's stated or real opposition to it. They just don't want to share licensing money.