Dartmouth refuses to collectively bargain with its men's basketball players

If the full National Labor Relations Board does not overturn a regional director’s earlier decision that Dartmouth’s men’s basketball players are employees of the college, Dartmouth said in a statement Monday that it will refuse to collectively bargain with the athletes.

“If the full NLRB refuses to overturn the regional director’s decision, Dartmouth’s only remaining option to challenge this legal error is to engage in a technical refusal to bargain, an unprecedented step in our long history of labor negotiations,” Dartmouth said in the statement. “This will likely result in SEIU Local 560 filing an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB, which we would appeal. This is the only lever Dartmouth has to get this matter reviewed by a federal court.”

Regional director Laura Sacks concluded in a Feb. 5 ruling that Dartmouth’s men’s basketball players were employees of the college, a landmark ruling in college sports. On March 5, the players voted 13-2 in favor of unionizing, marking a historic next step toward an employee model taking hold for at least some athletes in college sports.

Dartmouth appealed ruling to full NLRB

As expected, the school appealed Sacks’ ruling to the full NLRB. The entire process is expected to be lengthy and could potentially take more than a year before there is a resolution.

“Given Dartmouth’s decades-long commitment to athletics as an extension of our academic mission, we believe the regional director has made an extraordinary mistake in finding these students are employees,” Dartmouth’s Monday statement continued. “Varsity athletes in the Ivy League are not employees; they are students whose educational program includes athletics. The Ivy League was formed in 1954 with a commitment to the primacy of academics, which was visionary at the time and even more so today. While we continue to negotiate in good faith with multiple unions representing Dartmouth employees, our responsibility to future generations of students means we must explore all our legal options for challenging the regional director’s legal error.”

For collective bargaining purposes, all eligible men’s basketball players are represented by Service Employees International Union Local 560.

“It’s time for the age of amateurism to end,” Dartmouth teammates Cade Haskins and Romeo Myrthil said in a March 5 statement after players voted to unionize.

A growing number of industry leaders have believed college athletics has been on a slow march toward at least some athletes being deemed employees of their colleges. It’s been more than two years since NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo issued her memorable September 2021 memo in which she said “certain players at academic institutions are statutory employees who have the right to act collectively to improve their terms and conditions of employment.”

Dartmouth has been steadfast in stating that the college does not employee its men’s basketball players.

In a statement released immediately after the March 5 vote, Dartmouth said in part: “The students on the men’s basketball team are not in any way employed by Dartmouth. For Ivy League students who are varsity athletes, academics are of primary importance, and athletic pursuit is part of the educational experience.

“Classifying these students as employees simply because they play basketball is as unprecedented as it is inaccurate. We, therefore, do not believe unionization is appropriate.”