Dartmouth Basketball Team Unionizes: The NLRB Sets a Pick for Unions

Legendary basketball player Magic Johnson said, “The only thing that matters is the score.”Well, the score is 13 to 2, considering the votes for a union representing the Dartmouth College men’s basketball team. For college basketball hounds, it’s tournament time, but for the NCAA, it is a strange turn of events. Dartmouth, an Ivy League bench warmer in men’s basketball, has not played an NCAA Tournament game since 1959; however, it is now a leader in organized labor, choosing to become represented by the Service Employees International Union, since the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) found that the institution exercises control and provides compensation—in the form of shoes—but not athletic scholarships. In its decision, the NLRB cited the players’ estimate that team members receive equipment valued at over $44,000 per year.Husch Blackwell partners Tyler Paetkau and Jason Montgomery join Labor Law Insider host Tom Godar to explore this development, as organized labor continues to apply a full-court press to institutions of higher education.