Dartmouth College’s men’s basketball team voted in favor of unionizing Tuesday, bringing them one step closer to becoming the first undergraduate collegiate athletic team to unionize in the U.S., a choice that could shift how student athletes across the country, particularly at private colleges, are compensated.
Dartmouth College men’s basketball team is one step closer to becoming the first collegiate athletic ... [+]
The vote—which passed 13-2 according to the National Labor Relations Board—will allow players to join the Service Employees International Union Local 560, which already represents some employees of the school.
The vote comes a month after a February ruling from the NLRB that said the players were employees of the university because Dartmouth “has the right to control the work performed” by the team, and because those players “perform that work in exchange for compensation.”
If players unionize, they could be able to negotiate compensation, travel and practice hours with the school—though they currently don’t receive a direct salary.
Dartmouth now has five days to file an objection to the election, according to the NLRB, or the school could move the matter to the courts.
Following the decision, Dartmouth said in a statement it feels the decision to unionize is not “appropriate,” arguing “students on the men’s basketball team are not in any way employed by Dartmouth.” Darmouth said classifying players as employees “simply because they play basketball is as unprecedented as it is inaccurate.” The university noted its “productive relationships” with the five existing unions on campus and said they “always negotiate in good faith,” but called this an “isolated circumstance.”
The passing vote could set a precedent for undergraduate student athletes forming unions at private universities across the country. If the university decides not to negotiate with the union the team is likely to file an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB which could lead to months-long litigation.
There has been a long-standing push from student athletes at colleges and universities to get compensation for their work, William Herbert, executive director of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions at Hunter College, told Forbes. In 2014, football players at Northwestern University attempted to form a union. While a regional NLRB director said the football players were employees, the national NLRB said they weren’t going to assert jurisdiction over the case and it was later dismissed. Dartmouth’s case is slightly different from Northwestern’s in that Dartmouth competes in the Ivy League, which is composed of private schools that don’t offer athletic scholarships to their students.
The push to pay student athletes is part of a broader push at colleges and universities to pay student employees, Herbert told Forbes. Even at Dartmouth, this wouldn’t be the first unionization vote from student workers. In 2022, dining workers at the school unanimously voted to unionize. Across the country, undergraduate student assistants, dining staff and resident assistants are working to form unions. Most recently, at California State University thousands of undergraduate student workers voted to join the California State University Employees Union.
The National Labor Relations Act does not cover employees of public institutions, so if the men’s basketball team at Dartmouth votes in favor of unionizing, it could have less bearing on state colleges. Players who want to unionize at public schools may have to unionize under state law, but not all states have those protections, Herbert told Forbes.
It’s unclear exactly what effect the decision to unionize at Dartmouth could have on other schools, though Herbert said “once labor rights are granted, regarding collective bargaining, there’s a [usually] groundswell of unionization efforts.”