ABSTRACT
In January 2014, student-athlete football players at Northwestern University in Illinois filed union cards with the National Labour Relations Board, in what was hailed as the first move towards the unionisation of college student-athletes. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) was quick to condemn the move, castigating it in McCarthyite tones as ‘union-backed’ and “an attempt to turn student-athletes into employees (which) undermines the purpose of college: an education” (Ellis, 2013). The NCAA said it was ‘confident’ that the National Labour Relations Board would reject any attempt to organise student-athletes, and while its confidence may be misplaced (for the legal and factual issues surrounding the matter are complex and varied) the idea that undergraduate students who happen to play sports are ‘employees’ for the purposes of national labour relations law is not one that sits easily.
