The union representing the Dartmouth men’s basketball team filed an unfair labor practice complaint against the Ivy League school on Wednesday after it refused to negotiate with players on a collective bargaining agreement.
Service Employees International Union Local 560, which already represents some other workers at the Hanover, New Hampshire, school, said the failure to bargain violated both labor laws and the school’s own ethics.
“For nearly 60 years, Dartmouth has followed a tradition of fair and equitable union contract bargaining with our locals,” union president Chris Peck said in a statement. “It is past time for the Dartmouth administration to seize this opportunity to show player-like leadership, avoid financial and legal liability, and live up to its own rhetoric about the importance of community and dialogue.”
A regional director of the National Labor Relations Board ruled in March that Dartmouth men’s basketball players are school employees, clearing the way for them to unionize. The players then voted 13-2 to join SEIU Local 560.
Dartmouth responded by announcing that it would not bargain with the players — a tactic designed to force the case into court in hopes that a federal judge would overturn the NLRB decision.
“While we continue to negotiate in good faith with the multiple unions representing Dartmouth employees, our responsibility to future generations of students means we must explore all of our legal options to challenge the regional director’s error — which was contrary to every legal precedent,” the school said Wednesday. Dr. in a statement.
The refusal to bargain with the players “is an unprecedented step in Dartmouth’s long history of labor negotiations, but it is the only lever we can use to ensure this matter is reviewed by a federal court,” the school said. “We had hoped that this action would result in them filing an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB, which they did, and we will also appeal.”
NLRB Regional Director Laura Sachs ruled in March that Dartmouth had enough control over men’s basketball players that they were legally school employees entitled to collectively bargain over working conditions such as practice time and travel as well as pay. Although the decision applies only to Dartmouth’s men’s basketball team, which sought to unionize, players said they hope other teams on campus or at other schools will follow suit.
Dartmouth asked the full board to review the regional director’s decision.
“Dartmouth’s decades-long commitment to athletics is an extension of our academic mission, and we maintain that the regional director made a tremendous mistake in finding these student employees,” the school said Wednesday. “Varsity athletes in the Ivy League are not employees; they are students whose academic programs include athletics. The Ivy League was formed in 1954 with a commitment to academics that was prescient at the time and even more so today.”
