Northwestern football players looking to unionize just took a serious blow Monday afternoon.
The National Labor Relations Board has just overturned a 2014 ruling that would have enabled Northwestern football players to form a union scoring a major victory for Northwestern as well as the NCAA.
“Our decision is primarily premised on a finding that because of the nature of sports leagues…it would not promote stability in labor relations to assert jurisdiction in this case,” the decision said.
This latest ruling was the first for the NLRB when dealing with college athletes pertaining to a private jurisdiction in Northwestern. The NLRB wouldn’t have had a hand in determining any labor disputes when it came to state colleges considering that would be up to each individual state’s labor laws.
The NLRB ruling is considered final as it leaves Northwestern players no option for an appeal. However the NLRB in their ruling failed to address what is seen as an ongoing problem with college players being seen as employees of the NCAA without obtaining acceptable benefits in return.