On Thursday morning—a month before they are slated to play their season-opener at Duke—Dartmouth men’s basketball players will make what could be their most consequential televised appearance in a video conference before the National Labor Relations Board.
The debate over the Big Green’s union eligibility will get under way in what’s expected to be a multi-day pre-election hearing presided over by a hearing officer from the NLRB’s regional office in Boston. Both sides—the university and the players—will call their witnesses, present materials and make their arguments as to whether the athletes should be considered workers under the National Labor Relations Act.
Beyond that fundamental—and, for the NCAA, perhaps existential—question, the sides will haggle over the size and make-up of the proposed bargaining unit and when or how a union election should be held.
A word of caution: Thursday’s hearing is just the first step in what could be a multistep, multiyear legal journey for the players and school officials. It could take them through the NLRB in Washington D.C. and into federal courts, perhaps eventually the U.S. Supreme Court.
But all journeys start somewhere.
To that end, expect a series of legal arguments on Thursday that will test the meanings of “employee” and “student” and how they ought to interact.
Through the Service Employees International Union, Local 560 of Concord, N.H., the players will insist Dartmouth has misclassified them as “amateurs” or “...
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