Athletes at some of Connecticut’s largest public universities would be allowed to join labor unions under proposed legislation introduced into the state legislature this week. The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Matt Lesser (D), was introduced into the state House of Representatives and referred to the state’s Higher Education and Employment Advancement Committee, the Hartford Courant reported.
Under the text of the bill, athletes who receive a scholarship worth at least 90 percent of the cost of tuition at a state university could join unions if the scholarship is “materially related to the student’s expected participation in intercollegiate athletics” (that is, an athletic scholarship) and if the athletic program in question exceeded a certain revenue threshold relative to the value of the scholarship. It’s unclear based on the bill’s text how many universities that would affect, though it seems certain it would apply to the University of Connecticut’s football team and men’s and women’s basketball teams at least.
Connecticut became a central talking point about NCAA rules during the 2014 NCAA Tournament when UConn’s star basketball player, Shabazz Napier, responded to news about unionization efforts of athletes at Northwestern University by saying that he and his teammates often went hungry thanks to limits on the amount of food schools can provide to athletes. The NCAA responded to the outcry by changing its rules to allow schools to provide more to athletes. Still, the case prompted Connecticut lawmakers to begin researching whether unionization for athletes was possible under current state law.
Connecticut would be the first state to pass legislation allowing athletes to join unions since football players at Northwestern University began their efforts to organize last year. A North Carolina union last year announced that it would allow college athletes to join its ranks. In April, Republicans in the Ohio state legislature pushed a symbolic resolution meant to keep athletes from joining unions. Michigan Republicans passed legislation banning college athletes from joining unions at the end of the 2014 legislative session and Gov. Rick Snyder (R) signed it into law. Democrats hold sizable majorities in both houses of the Connecticut state legislature, but one co-chair of the committee that would have to take up the bill first isn’t supportive of the effort, the Courant reported.
That has all taken place since a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board approved the Northwestern athletes’ petition to unionize in March, ruling that they qualified as “employees” under federal labor law. But that law applies only to private colleges and universities and doesn’t affect athletes at state schools. Northwestern appealed the decision to the full NLRB in April, and though a ruling in the case was expected before the end of 2014, it never came. Northwestern athletes voted on unionization in April but the ballots are sealed until after the NLRB’s ruling is announced.