Northwestern football players seek to join union

Or the more current health care act. As one politician said "we need to
pass it first to see what's in it."

 

It's kind of interesting. In their quest to control everything, the universities transformed their players from students to employees.

And now, the players are going to have a union to negotiate all these rules on their behalf.

If they had actually treated their student-athletes as student-athletes, there wouldn't be a case.

 

"were in fact employees" another can of worms here. When do the lawsuits start by players expecting back pay for overtime and workers comp.

When does the state of Illinois and IRS go after Northwestern for the back pay roll taxes that should have been paid?

In real life this happens all the time when independent contractors are deemed
to be company employees.

 

Just the market at work, right? The dollars grew exponentially and it became an enormously profitable industry. There was nothing the schools could do but walk away from the money or run it like a business. So they ran it like a business and kept telling the employees that it wasn't really a business. Yesterday, Peter Sung Ohr called bullshit.

 

Not saying it's right but it also allowed schools to fund a lot of non revenue
generating sports that they would not have been able to do otherwise.
Compliance with Title IX was a factor.

 

Dick mentioned it on another thread recently, but every time I hear someone through out Title IX as a reason why the status quo has been maintained, or couldn't have been changed without government action, I'm reminded of it:

Seinfeld: You don't even know what a write-off is.

http://worldofseinfeld.blogspot.com/2007/08/seinfeld-quote-write-off.html

You can't just "blame" Title IX unless you're going to tell me how Title IX played into it.

 

I don't have the staying power to write a 7 paragraph Ragu like explanation but if you
don't think that title IX was a factor you have your head in the sand.

 

I haven't practiced labor law in a while (I did some public sector work in the mid-90s but have really dealt with non-union matters) but I have to say that I'm surprised by the ruling. It really does open a massive can of worms and forces serious thought on a lot of questions regarding these alleged amateurs -- workers comp, revenue sharing for TV contracts, ability to be paid, extended medical benefits post-college, etc. I've always felt that if you make the argument that athletes are "paid" by the value of their scholarship, then there is no intellectual reason why that needs to be the ceiling of value.

I think that you are going to see a lot of states quickly pass laws saying that athletes attending public schools can't unionize.

 

Hmm. Even in states where unions don't have enough strength to prevent this kind of action, why would legislators want to poke at unions?

I don't see that happening.

While it has the chance to grow unions, and union loyalty, I don't think most law makers are going to see this as enough of a "problem" that it's worth picking a fight with unions over.

 

If I were Northwestern I would accept the ruling, recognize the union and offer all kinds of benefits to the players. As a result they would be able to recruit
every top player in the country.

They would be out of line with NCAA but the law would be on their side.

 

It'll be fun when colleges institute a draft for high school players.

 

I agree with you about all the cans of worms that will be opened. But the opinion really is damning in all the facts contained. Everyone covering college football in America should read the thing.