Dartmouth men's basketball team files petition to unionize with National Labor Relations Board

In the latest attempt for college athletes to gain more control of their status, the men's basketball team at Dartmouth College filed a petition Wednesday with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seeking to unionize.

The petition lists 15 players and excludes managers and supervisors. The players are seeking to chapter Local 560 of the Service Employees International Union as part of the petition. If approved, players would formally be considered employees of the university and would have the ability to collectively bargain for salaries, benefits and other working conditions.

"Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board seeking to represent students on Dartmouth’s men’s basketball team," Dartmouth said Thursday in a statement emailed to USA TODAY Sports. "We have the utmost respect for our students and for unions generally. We are carefully considering this petition with the aim of responding promptly yet thoughtfully in accordance with Dartmouth’s educational mission and priorities."

This is the latest effort to organize since counsel for the NLRB issued a September 2021 memo that stated that student athletes should be viewed as employees of the schools for which they play under the National Labor Relations Act.

NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo said in a statement accompanying that memo that college athletes “perform services for institutions in return for compensation and (are) subject to their control.

"Thus, the broad language of  … the Act, the policies underlying the NLRA, Board law, and the common law fully support the conclusion that certain (college athletes) are statutory employees, who have the right to act collectively to improve their terms and conditions of employment."

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A message sent to the Ivy League seeking comment was not immediately returned. It is unclear if the conference will support the petition to unionize.

The effort the men's basketball team at Dartmouth to unionize joins an NLRB complaint from May against the NCAA, the Pac-12 Conference and the University of Southern California that alleges they have unlawfully misclassified college athletes as "student-athletes" rather than employees, and an unfair labor practice petition in July against Northwestern filed by the College Basketball Players Association.

In 2014 and 2015, football players at Northwestern made a push to unionize, but the NLRB unanimously decided in August 2015 not to accept jurisdiction over the matter. At that time, it said the board had no jurisdiction over public schools, addressing the Northwestern effort would run counter to the National Labor Relations Act’s charge that the board create stable and predictable labor environments in various industries.

Contributing: Steve Berkowitz